The Somberful Mirth
by mCat2
Summary: Ousted by a society where he never really belonged to in the first place, Severus Snape finds himself at the whim of a very precocious muggle girl. Reviews please. 0_*
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any other Warner Brother's enterprises. These are not of my own creation, but the plot is entirely my own, and those who infringe will feel the consequence.   
  
  
He stood there, his prideful, gaunt form, extending far beyond Albus Dumbledore's admittedly stout body. His blackened eyes, made more so by the ruthless onslaught of the summer's events, were hazed in smoky anger. A twitching arm reached to grip a reassuringly chilly window sill.   
You want me to what?, he asked again, each lilt, each syllable punctuated by uninhibited resent. His very structure rattled with both indignance and rage, his beakish nose flexing involuntarily in the olfactorily rich room.   
You could take the boy out of the dungeons, but not the dungeons out of the boy.   
His taut skin on his knuckles threatened to snap, each bone and sinew revealed in a perversely intimate manner. Fingers, in comparison to the rest of his body, that should have been elongated, alien-like in their slenderness, were instead calloused and roughened, acid bitten and potion stung. He had little care for a neatly manicured hand now.   
The wizard sighed, obviously fatigued and defeated by a man so strongly rooted in his ways, any element of change, any variant of routine, was notoriously ill received. His face, which seemed neither old, nor gratuitously young, looked aged in the moment. His hair, which shimmered frenziedly in the light, only caused his face to look even more sallow. Only his eyes, those prismatically blue eyes, betrayed his annoyance.   
They changed colors upon mood, and the friendly periwinkle blue had not so subtly bled into a dark cobalt. For your own protection, Severus, he responded slowly. One misstep and the younger, more copiously wounded man would immediately flee, the skittish, jetty stallion he was.   
Absolutely not, the response came in a hiss, one that signaled his anger was untethered and frantically hurling itself against the panes of sanity. His eyes narrowed, giving the illusion of becoming eerily serpentine. Appropriate, really, when one considers his house mascot to be a snake. The jaw clenched, and his fingers reluctantly pried themselves from the window, scraping mournfully along the edge.   
He would not, for pride's sake, be ambivilously tossed about, floundering an ocean of technicalities, gadgets and non magical people. To be placed in such an openly hostile environment was stoking the witch burners with firewood. He must draw the line somewhere, and he refused to go skulking off, belly first, for Voldemort's sake. He grimaced spitefully at Dumbledore, becoming even angrier at his placid expression. The spectacles, dazzlingly effective at hiding the barest emotions, seemed even more opaque, the crystalline glass forming a very tainted shield around his eyes. He only wished that his own physical traits were so illegible.   
If you refuse, Severus, your death is imminent. Hogwarts cannot hope to shield you forever.   
Snape gave an angry shrug, but instead came off as more of a frantic bucking; an attempt to ward off an invisible assault. His sable hair, his most prized physicality, had been ravaged by stress and periodic torture. It hung, brittle and limpid, resembling his own state, mentally and bodily. He wished he had another ledge to rest upon, another stable support. But, alas, in this world, with so few unshakable allies and supporters, there seemed much distance between one steady ledge and the next.   
Why with them? Why not another school?, he asked carelessly, knowing that his pointless question would be met with further exasperation. He was tired, world weary, battle weary, death weary. Too many people he had seen fall, and it mattered little whether or not they were comrades or enemies. Death had a uniform face, and it varied little in its methods. His face grew tight at the memory of Macgonagall's desperate eyes, once so amicably referred to as beady, ironically so vastly open in death. Just the recollection of her strangled, helpless cry was enough to visibly shake the normally non emotive man. He shook his head, and Dumbledore asked naught, for he knew too well the troubles that plagued him.   
You must go. If you refuse, we will have lost our greatest ally.  
Snape winced, wishing that he didn't put so much pressure upon his battered shoulders. He had precariously avoided death too many times for the blunt explication of his fate to unnerve him. It was the significance of his presence, the fact that was useful to a cause he found himself frequently questioning. For all the good these supposedly gallant men accomplished, little results had showed. The darkness had been quick and ruthless in its expansion, and those who had wavering faiths had already been assimilated. He felt a twinge in his scar, his indelible reminder of his own faltered youth.   
He gave his headmaster a stare that could melt stone, before he gave his terminal decision; I must have time.   
Dumbledore rose slightly, ambling towards him in what, in any other situation, would have appeared to be an affectionate gate. But the context revealed him as immensely impatient. There is no time, Severus. That is the very weapon we lack. I urge, for your own sake, to seek protection with muggles. There is simply no other option.   
He of course didn't mention death in name, but the heavy implications still lingered. Nor did he say torture, dismemberment or worse, Imperius-induced betrayal. He mourned for his student, a perpetually lost, precariously intelligent young man.   
Severus shrugged, giving an indifferent, yet still smoldering glare. He had never liked being confined in tight spaces, and liked even less the thought of death being the only way out. Not that he had accomplished such an enormously large amount in his misguided life, but he would have liked to think that there were better things to live for.   
  
It was a statement, not a question. A retraction of pride, perhaps? But no one could be certain with this capricious professor. He looked sufficiently drained; emotionally sapped.   
London. But close enough to Floo networks and wizard gathering places, the headmaster said gently, knowing it would still require an immense amount of encouragment. It was not everyday that a wizard was fored to move from his comfortably settled position and made to re-nest elsewhere.   
I have to. For the Cause's sake.   
This was uttered autmotically; in a monotonous voice. There was no conviction to be beheld.   
Dumbledore nodded, and clasped Severus' thin shoulder briefly, grimacing at the sharp bones that were so evident, even beneath the thick cushion that were his robes.   
Snape flashed him a brief, mirthless, almost rueful smile before he glided eerily out of the room.   
  
  
  
  
A/N: Pretty dark from the others, eh? This will prove to be a lot more interesting than the first chapter may seem. Will hold much surprises. Reviews muchly appreciated.   
  
  
  
  



	2. The Quick Brown Fox

  
Severus Snape was in an uncomfortable state of ambiguity. He had no idea what he himself wanted, only a vague inkling of other people's desires. Of course the Cause was an automatic justification for this otherwise unfair reposting, but then again, a lot of inexplicable things were always rationalised using The Cause.   
  
The Cause. In all its grandeur and bloodied glory, never had he met so deceptive an institution. Of course you joined if you want Voldemort defeated, of course you joined if you wanted the riddance of Dark Arts. Of course you joined if you cared to be accepted into highly placed positions of power and politics, accepted into the best schools, and generally well liked among many.   
  
But, too late had Severus Snape learned, that many does not mean all. Deatheaters, quite a popular pastime when he was student, seemed to be in the vast majority of the school. Little did he know that their curtieousness did not extend far beyond the Slytherin house. Ironic also was the fact that these priveleges were shared by nearly all members of the ranks they were fighting so tirelessly to defeat. Living a life as a Deatheater signified privelege, but also pain. Everything must have an equal balance somewhere.   
  
He rubbed his Mark absently, noting the tiny ridge of skin that had so colossal an impact upon his life. A scar was all it was, really, when one reasoned down to the basics of things. But no ordinary scar could gleam the most onyx black, nor the most crimson red. And no scar had quite so vicious a master as this. He had often debated whether he should simply mutiliate the damned thing off his arm. Or even cut his arm off, until he realised that unless he wished to continue brewing potions and earning a relatively steady income, his arm could simply not go.   
  
He let out a frusturated growl, knowing that if his voice bore the full weight of his torment, the stones of Hogwarts would surely collapse. He had long since deemed himself a lost cause, and now simply wished everyone else would. Perhaps that way he would not feel such obligation towards Dumbledore, nor to the rest of them, though his loyalties towards his headmaster were a bit more than deeply rooted.   
  
He was tirelessly devoted to him, knowing that if need be, his own miserable life he would gladly trade to see the old man prevail. Knowing that such a godly man would be left behind because of his sacrifice was reward enough.   
  
Few students roamed the halls anymore, mostly because their cowardly parents though them better protected in their own weakly warded homes. Little did they know of the zeal and quickness that Voldemort used when slaughtering defenceless families, the malicious grin of pleasure that he gained from watching frozen horror upon their faces. He felt a clinch in his gut, knowing that the sickly, foul pleasure of death would never leave him. He was a virgin sullied, and well he knew that his own errors were wholly irreversable.   
  
Of course, some would be disgusted by his partaking in such inhuman ceremonies, the killing of people. And, at one point, Severus would have fully agreed with them. But that was before, before he knew how strong the pull was, to come back and exploit his own talents. As the ocean is inexorable from the moon, so was Severus Snape with his own realisation of the power he harbored. Much like a drug in a muggle's hands, so was death in his own.   
  
He thought he would be sick for a moment, feeling the acidic liquid creep slowly up his throat. Just staring at his own body made him ill, nevertheless thinking about how he had used it. He twisted his mouth into a grimace, and glimmered softly down the hall, the absolute blackness of his robes devouring every particle of light that was reflected into them. Even the man who wore them seemed to be consumed by their utter depthlessness. I  
  
In the harsh light of day, reflected off the bleak cobblestones of the greast square of the school, where the four towers conjoined, leaving an intimately close space to be shared by all. There was no on skulking there now, only littered remains of those who used to. Severus regarded it carefully, his cruel, hawkish face twitching in pain and reminiscince. His blue black eyes, restless as stallions, darted frenetically between the four minarets that rose in resplendent conjunction from the rest of the castle. His pale skin, perhaps lighter than the pallor of snow, was eerily detatched from his somber clothing. It glowed, even in the imcomparably white light of a cloudy, winter sky, it muted everything else around him. A satyr, perhaps, seemingly half human, for he was beastial in his cruelty, and ethereal in his looks.   
  
He rubbed the malleable material of his robes between his index finger and thumb, appearing a fine tailor appraising robes. But his thoughts were strayed far from such petty fantasies. What he wouldn't give to have a profession that didn't involve him becoming deeply embroiled in dark arts and vindictive dictators.   
  
There was light pattering of feet, meters from his own staunch form, and he looked up quickly, making sure his own defenses were not so carelessly strewn about his feet. Sirius Black, now embedded within the fortress walls, and showing no signs of taking his leave, approached him warily. A hostility so long sewn, yet freshly wounded, still lingered. Neither sought the other's company without absolute need, and even then it was a great dollop of pride that had to be imbibed. Severus inclined his head briefly, acknowledging his presence, but not inviting him for chit-chat. Black did the same, though there was an odd animalia that resided in his subtly chisled face.   
  
Have you set a date?  
  
Severus grunted, though he found it extremely distasteful to do so, he reasoned that the less words with Black, the more he would understand. Black inclined his head for a swift second, and regarded his enemy with something akin to inimical curiosity. As much as he hated Severus, he had to give the man credit. After all, he was going to be leaving with less than a day's notice to do so.   
  
Albus sent me. He said the sooner the better.   
  
Severus gave him a glare, but it was half hearted. His heart sagged at the thought of his precious classrooms being rooted around and manhandled by another.   
  
.   
  
  
It was said in a swift sigh that would have sounded lachrymose, had it not been for the odd lurch of pain that his face made as he forced the words out.   
  
Black nodded, for once aware that it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: No reviews, as of yet, but I hope there will be more soon. This is vastly different from my other fanfics, so I hope you enjoy it.   
  
  



	3. Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

  
Severus stared after him with such an infusion of hate and loathing, it was difficult to imagine someone's heart could contain such blackness. He clenched his sickly fists once more, and resolutely marched up and down the corridors, making sure that no students were trying to attempt mid-day trysts or cutting classes.   
  
Of course, this skulking round hallways used to be a sadistic, ill-tempered habit of his, but it had gradually turned itself into a necessity. Hogwarts though well guarded, was not impervious. Too many times before had a servant of Voldemort's been allowed to enter the castle and been able to wreak havoc on those comfortably inhabiting it.   
  
He bit his lip in frustration as the image of Peter Pettigrew settled in his mind. The weak chin and rat-like eyes constantly darting sickened him, as did his high, nerve shredding voice when he triumphantly revealed to Voldemort where the Potters had been stowed. Black should have been the one under the influence of the Fidelus Charm, of course, but how did he know the way history would ironically reveal itself.   
  
He had been there when Pettigrew groveled in front of Voldemort, been there when Black had seemingly blasted dozens into oblivion, and been there as his trial had carried on endlessly. He had been there for the worst, and survived, and was not left wishing he hadn't. And, his only thanks for this was swift removal from the only place which really mattered anymore: Hogwarts.   
  
Because what would he do, once shunted from its walls? He smiled unpleasantly, muggles were hardly ones to use potions. It seemed to be that pills were a universal solution to everything ;he only wished that wizards were that susceptible. He cracked his knuckles, feeling the ache and dull pain of being cramped in his study, furiously grading lethargic, and occasionally cretinous papers. He knew not why he bothered to glance at them. It seemed that each year, the evasively smaller shipment of students became stupider and stupider, their handwriting more careless and their personalities more ruthless. Last year had been hardest to bear, when he had seen nearly all of his seventh years subordinate to the Dark Lord. He cursed himself for hours, not knowing when, where or why he had failed. His attempts at being disdainful for all things dark were pointedly ignored or woefully misunderstood.   
  
His zeal of seeking the position of Defence Against Dark Arts was mistaken as being an actual agent of Dark Arts. He scowled as he thought this, no doubt Potter and his weakly minions were among those to seed these rumors. Severus was mildly amused and offended that a boy whom he had spent countless hours trying to protect still hated him, and always managed to foil his plans. Potter, though he wasn't bright as his father, always found the slightest error, the most overlooked part, the needle in the haystack. He found it, and always managed to use it to his own advantage. That was the part that Severus found sickening, that was the part that he had cursed Potter so endlessly for. Never mind the fact the boy had never thanked him for his saving his miserably misspent life, actually, Potter had the audacity and ego to throw it back in his face. And to be painfully honest, it had stung as much as Dissolvente Potion.   
  
  
He walked slowly into his dungeons, admiring the sterility of his classroom. Everything was perfectly placed, not even a stray fibre of material out of order. He smiled complacently. Woe betide the new potions master who would have to struggle to disarm the charms and wards that he kept upon his stores and rooms. Although the notion was childish, the reason was not. There were many potently virulent ingredients stored away, as well as those who could induce instantaneous death. He shivered violently as the thought of what the young Deatheaters in Hogwarts could be capable of, if their sullied young hands came into contact.   
  
His quarters were sparse, ironically close to that of a monk's. The only thing that lay in shameful abundance were books; piled, shoved, crammed, hidden, levitated, shelved, stained. He kept them everywhere, both for personal pleasure, as well as a desperate attempt to brew anti-curses and new cures for the petulant diseases the Deatheaters had a nasty habit of cultivating.   
  
And behind these martyristic acts, lay the most despairing of all: Severus was searching to prolong his own life. Although his constant notions of death and suicide seemed depressive and alarming, he knew in his heart of hearts he really didn't want death to claim him just yet. He knew he was cowardly and wicked for these things, but if only he could find the one potion, the one ingredient, the one book....  
  
His musings were short lived, because he was acutely aware of another's presence. He turned around slowly, his eyes still contemplating with a guarded fondness, his classroom. Remus Lupin stood there, regarding his old enemy, and now fellow warrior. Severus' eyes flicked arrogantly over his always shabby clothes, before settling on his neatly kept features.  
  
  
  
The tone, however pleasant, was still urgent, and his eyes did nothing to dispel the notion. His hazel eyes looked plaintive, and his nervous fingers gripped his briefcase. Severus nodded curtly, inviting explanation.   
  
I'm in need of Wolfsbane. I'm afraid my attacks are becoming somewhat more intense, and the spells seem to be lasting longer than they should.   
  
He trailed off. Severus nodded, but not in understanding. He had been afraid that the ruthless affliction would worsen with age or stress, and he was correct. Lupin looked half the man he was before, his shrunken eyes and wizened skin should have alerted him before.   
  
It comes with age. As well as the constant stress of battling. I'll brew something more potent, though I'm afraid it will be far more difficult to imbibe.   
  
Lupin nodded, eternally grateful and uncaring as to whether it would have an awful flavor. Severus would grant him that; his totally selfless concern where others were concerned. The only reason he took his potion with such zeal, besides the considerable pain of transformation, was because he desperately wanted the children to remain unscathed. He also wanted to teach them Defence Against Dark Arts, as was his job, but he did this because he knew he could and would recruit powerful allies for the side of good. Or, The Cause.   
  
Severus made a face in disgust, and Lupin eyed him curiously.   
  
It's nothing. A simple spasm.   
  
Lupin nodded, though somewhat suspiciously. Severus pretended to pluck a piece of lint from his robes. When he glanced up again, Lupin was still there, still looking at him mildly. He glared at him, wishing he would leave, he cleared his throat and tapped his foot, but he still did not move.   
  
'Sirius said Friday. Is this true?.   
  
Severus cursed himself for so liberally answering an otherwise entirely personal matter. Lupin seemed to catch this.   
  
Don't worry, it was only me he told. I don't understand why is has to be you, and not someone else.  
  
Severus thought Lupin almost looked angry as he said this, grinding his thin wrist into his other hand. He smiled coldly, and felt an odd twinge of pity for the obviously suffering man in front of him.   
  
It has nothing to do with favoritism, Lupin, so don't flatter yourself. Yes, many of the faculty do believe that this would be an easier war to fight if I would not hinder it so, but the reasons are entirely different. Once stripped of my magic, and thrust into muggle-dom, Voldemort cannot track me, even with the Mark. No one would be able to find me without my wand.   
  
He felt an almost palpable relief as he said this, his thin chest rising in a rapidly inhaling motion. Lupin looked aghast, and utterly horrified. His trembling figure gave away both his emotionally and physically fragile state.   
  
You have no wand? But that's depriving you of all ability to be able to defend yourself, if need be.  
  
Albus is willing to take the risk. I trust him entirely.   
  
Severus said the words calmly, too calmly, for even he did not fully believe him. Powerfully perceptive as the old wizard was, he highly doubted he would be able to predict the often sporadic attacks of the Deatheaters.   
  
What would happen if you remained longer? Or even if they found you?  
  
I would die.   
  
The words which had been so long at ravenously devouring his mind were now released, floating in an empty vessel of a previously exhaled breath. Severus himself felt lighter, but weaker. His future was bleak, and almost without hope. Dumbledore was setting him up to die, and for once, he had no problems with others arranging his fate.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: I know it's rather depressing and all that, but its for plot points only. I have no idea as to whether our hero actually does die, so I guess you will just have to wait and see. My profuse thanks to Starlight for such great reviews *hugs and bows*.   
  
  
  



	4. Porcelain

  
Lupin became ashen, and he shook his head, his eyes still following Severus' own.   
  
He would never place you in immediate danger.   
  
This was said breathlessly, as if the utterer had no strength of will to believe it himself. Lupin's eyes betrayed him, Severus noted with a disgusted satisfaction, he had no backbone. He believed so blindly in so obviously a failing cause, that it was robbing him of any self respect and of any will to fight.   
  
Oh yes, Severus knew of men like Lupin and Black.Those who were the most clamorous supporters, but once the battle had reached their turf, they would scramble wildly, eventually killing themselves with their own scatter brained witlessnesss. He gave an unpleasant smile.   
  
I have been placed in immediate danger before, many thanks to Dumbledore, and yourself. Has your memory been affected as well?.   
  
Lupin swallowed, his frequently metamorphising features looking wan in the dim light. Severus knew he had snagged upon a fraying nerve by the way Lupin bristled.   
  
I will not dignify that, Professor. It is only you who will not let things run their course and accept our earnest apologies. I'm sure James would be among the most abashed.   
  
Severus gave him a contemptuous snort.   
  
Potter and his never ending supply of humility. As of letting things run their course, why don't I just let nature have her way with you?.   
  
The way Lupin's jaw clenched and his fists curled neatly, like moth scorched by flame, he knew that Lupin was afraid.   
  
I believe things have not gone well down that road for you before, Severus. Brew the potion, or you will be the first to feel my unpleasant affliction.   
  
A laugh escaped his lips, and Lupin looked impassive. The threat was over, the cloud disappated. All that remained were two life long enemies, too tired to fight each other as well as the entity that threatened them.   
  
Good bye, Severus.   
  
A quick turn upon his heel, and his light footsteps trotted up the steps. A flash of grew caught his eyes, and Severus saw the hem of his robe had been darned again, this time by a motley strip of fabric.   
  
The door slammed, ancient wood colliding with ancient stone, giving a satisfying crack. Severus turned again, reminiscing in the dungeons, even letting himself daydream a bit. But there was still a crackle in the air, a palpable, yet oddly ethereal sound, perhaps the first snap of twig trodden beneath a student's foot. Or perhaps it wasn't that at all.  
  
Perhaps Severus was beginning to feel the realisation of his own dread.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: I know it's short, but I have been really busy, and I want to write this in small installments, so I can spend time on detail and such. Sorry if you found it boring. Thanks to all those inspirational reviews. 


	5. Nebudchanezzer's Dilemma

  
Friday came unbidden and bittersweet.   
  
He ran his fingertips longingly over the scarred and mottled desks of his classrooms, and the empty, dustless bookshelves. His eyes, though distant, glittered with reluctance as he briefly gave a speech in the Great Hall. The applause was sparse, but surprised. Several students had outrageously impertinent looks of joy on their faces. He tried to feel indifferent, but found that for once, it had failed him.   
  
The man was being forced out, almost kicking and screaming. You could see it, the way his jaw moved, and his hands roamed restlessly over his utensils. The food all looked the same, and the professors all chattered happily indifferent amongst themselves. It was a typically normal day for him, with the exception that after this, he would not stride down to his dungeons to bully or belittle his students, nor would he continue on from that class to teach his seventh years, and from there his schedule would not go till 1:30, where he would pause to take lunch, and after that, he would discontinue his furious marking of papers.   
  
Severus. You should eat, for today will prove to be taxing.   
  
Dumbledore's voice sank like a blunt dagger through his blurry unconcious. He gave him a quick scowl, before shovelling unwanted, uneeded food between his lips. He made a face; his stomach refused to accept any more, as did his deadened tongue.   
  
I have no wish to, Headmaster. I simply want to leave as quickly as possible.   
  
He would not give anyone else the satisfaction of seeing his unhapiness of leaving. And partially, his words rang true, for he really did just want to be on the train and out of this place. It tugged his heart in too many directions at once. Better if he just sank into his seat and died.   
  
Fine. As you wish, Severus. On a different (Severus noted he neglected to say lighter) note, you are to be escorted to the train station, and met by Analiese Ambruzzi. She is aware of your situation, but not the particulars, for I left that at your discretion. She will be showing you to where you will be staying, and where you will remain until I owl you.   
  
He nodded, absorbing but not understanding. This was still a dreary nightmare to him. He had yet to awake.   
  
How will she know who I am?.   
  
Dumbledore gave him a sly smile, and gestured at his robes. Severus realised he had forgotten to remove his habitual uniform. He felt a twinge of blood in his cheeks.   
  
Too soon, the plates had cleared themselves, and too soon Severus found himself rising, black and polished luggage in hand. Lupin and Black rose as well, though there was far less gloating in Lupin's eyes.   
  
Good-bye, Professor, and good luck. I daresay I will even miss your dismal presence.   
  
Lupin said this with a sly, and boyish smile, as he stuck out his hand. Severus glanced distastefully, and shook it. He also slipped the Wolfsbane recipe between Lupin's long fingers. Lupin nodded, knowing what it was before he had to unfurl it.   
  
G'bye Severus. Hope I won't see your gloomy visage til this is all over.   
  
Black stood, hands thrust as far as they would go in pockets as to avoid handshake.   
  
And I wish to see you in hell before this war is over. Perhaps then you may tell me whether or not Azkaban is a correct comparison.   
  
Severus noted, with a dull sense of glee, that Black's face looked shadowed. He cursed him beneath his breath, before retreating. And then, came the hardest leave of all.   
  
I bid you to fare well, Severus. I have no doubt in your ability to escape danger. I promise you I shall see you before this ends.   
  
Dumbledore's voice could not help but give him a meager crumb of hope. His eyes betrayed his gladness, however, for the cheery blue they usually gleamed was dispelled by a colour as melancholy as the bottom of the sea.   
Severus nodded curtly at all, swallowing back what he hoped were either coughs or sneezes. So this was the end.   
  
And Dumbledore watched, his heart growing heavier than it had in decades, his frail pupil growing smaller, smaller, denser and denser into the disappearing line where the sun had momentarily dipped to kiss the ground.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Short, I know, and kinda of climactic. Anyway, I promise I won't kill him, it was just another aspect to what it would mean if he left. Hoped you all enjoyed it. Thanks for reviews. 


	6. Achilles Overture

  
The trains were bleak without their usual hordes of students, the shiny new enamel seemed so wasted without the little personal decals the children took the liberty of carving. Even the usual tray of goodies which he had indulged in so many times before was absent, though he would never had admitted partaking in something so frivolous.   
  
He was forced, instead, to stare out of the window, watching his asylum become just another tiny pebble atop another tiny mound of dirt. His eyes closed, a sharp gust of pain seeming to assail him in the center of his chest.   
  
In a lapse of composure, he blew his breath on the window, watching the steam form, and with his long fingers, drew a hasty sketch of Sirius Black. He smiled, the corners of his mouth curling up in an uncharacteristically mischievous expression. It evaporated quickly, as did his cartoon, and he soon reverted to slumping sulkily in his seat, spindly arms crossed over his chest, dark eyes hazy with emotion and fatigue.   
  
To his surprise, the journey lasted half as long as he had expected, mostly because he slept most of the way. It was a good sleep, a hard, unrousable, refreshing much needed sleep that bordered upon unconsciousness. His head was slumped forward, lank hair lazily obscuring his infamous nose and daggerish eyes.   
  
This is exactly how she would remember him.   
  
A gentle tapping, almost a stroke is what finally stirred him. She had tried roughly shaking him, but found that harshness had elicited nothing more than an indifferent sigh, and a change of position.   
  
His eyes opened questioningly, and he said nothing for a few seconds, only struggling to place both where he was and who was glaring him full in the face. She was almost as raven haired as he, and her eyes were equally annoyed. They were a darker shade of brown, perhaps that of bitter chocolate, and he found himself smiling at the irony. Her olive skin glowed in a healthy, flush-of-youth way, and she had small, perfectly formed lips. He was glad, though he knew not why, that they were not overly large, nor overly thinned. He had long lamented for something of a more sufficient moue. She smiled, nervously, but still looked irritated; she would have been an utterly striking woman, except for the fact that she appeared to be about 15.   
  
  
  
She said this in a low whisper, but there was something rocky about her voice, a gravelly quality that scraped along the bottom. She had a mature tone; he nodded slightly in response, still not knowing what to expect. She gave him a quick, but sincerely grateful smile. She settled herself into the opposite seat, giving his reclining legs a gentle shove.   
  
Severus gave her the briefest of overviews, not quite being able to conquer the more physical side to his personality. She looked at him again, almost in a challenging way, her oddly coloured eyes forcing his own to be directed elsewhere. Peripherally, he noticed that she had smirked when his gaze shifted uncomfortably, and this rather irked him. He had never liked when someone had the ability to unseat him.   
  
Nadyae de Ambruzzi'.   
  
She offered him her slim hand and he noticed, with approval, that her fingernails were an appropriate length, and that she had exquisitely long fingers. Her wrists were thin, and he saw the round, revolving joint beneath her skin. He tentatively took her hand in his own, feeling distrustful of handshakes all of his life; her skin was very cold, almost bitingly so, and he resisted an urge to wrap her hand in his sleep warmed robes.   
  
A thought occurred to him.   
  
Dumbledore said an Analiese was to accompany me, not an...not you.   
  
He finished lamely, not remembering, nor having an inkling as how to pronounce her name. She winced at the other mention, and he instantly knew that this was a departed relation.   
  
My sister. She died recently, Dumbledore had no way of knowing. I was to take her place, and am very honoured.   
  
My condolences.   
  
Even though his brief, almost terse expression of apology would have been deemed offensive by another, she looked almost gladdened. She nodded, eyes furthering their spectrum of color, and an expression passed over her face he could not discern.   
  
Tell me, professor, are you equipped with any kind of aide, magical or otherwise?  
  
She had a brisk, business tone, and she gestured towards his robes. He raised an eyebrow in question, then realised what she had meant by the inquiry.   
  
No. My wand was disabled. All I have are my potions and a few, sparse ingredients. I was not allowed a magical weapon, out of the fear that I would be traced.   
  
She nodded in a troubled manner, then eased something out of her satchel. It was a metal object, beautiful in its blackness, gleaming, yet devouring the light that reflected on it. It looked like a black pearl, resting between her fingers. Suddenly, a cold caught him down the spine, and he sat upright, a draft of unknown origin embracing him. She was offering him a gun.   
  
Do you know what this is?.   
  
She opened his hand, and he winced, though imperceptibly, and she wrapped his own fingers around it. He was surprised at how heavy so small an object was, and how warm. He could practically feel the buzz of sheer destructiveness from it, and thought it preposterous that one stray pellet from the thing had the ability to slay another upon immediate contact. Much like the Killing Curse; with that thought, he gave the thing another troubled glance and put it carefully in his robes, where its location would be known solely by him, and where it granted easy access.   
  
Is the thing necessary? It's a troublesome thing to lug around, and rather ineffective and....   
  
Her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips. She leaned closer to him, and he could detect an angry fume from her body. One of the reasons he was so excellent at intimidation was because he had the ability to sense fluctuations in body heat, facial temperature, flushes, as well as various parfumes humans gave off when pleasured or antagonized. Oddly enough, the two scents were almost indiscernible.   
  
I can't help it if I can't offer you something superior, professor, but I had a request to keep you in a relatively alive condition for as long as you are in my sanctuary. Besides, you will find it quite useful. Appearances are deceiving.   
  
He wondered, idly what she had meant, and was vaguely troubled by her insinuation. He looked at her again, and found nothing more than an a beautiful girl, caught up in something that she was too young for.   
  
He sighed and leaned back, preparing to rest again. But he found that when sleep finally enmeshed him, it came in a monstrous form of faceless, formless darkness that submerged him on all sides, pushing him beneath its tempestuous surface and drowning him with its weight. He sputtered and gasped, sweating profusely and jerking violently. He was vaguely aware of a foreign smell beside him, whispering frightened reassurances in his ear, and tentatively stroking his face.   
  
His muscles relaxed at the contact, and he found that two capsules were being wedged between compressed lips.  
  
Just swallow these. They'll make you sleep.   
  
The voice sounded so placid, so utterly confident in the ability of these magical thing, that he did what he was told. Sugar coated and medicinal tasting, he swallowed with difficulty, and his stomach clinched when he mused over the word magic'. Something he had always lived with, and perhaps something he would not be able to survive without.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Finally getting somewhere, ne c'est pas? Anyways, thanks for reviews and putting up w/ my delays. Appreciated as always.   
  
  
  
  



	7. Solitaire

  
He awoke with an odd sensation, as if a metaphysical blackness had been cast over his head. He felt his nose rubbing against some material that felt foreign. Even the smell was different, but familiar at the same time, as if he had smelt it briefly before, but had not distinguished its essence. His mouth was parched and still tasted like the oddly metallic pills that she had forced into him; he felt half awake, groggy, and even in the blackness, his vision seemed to trail. He stirred, and immediately, a corner of the veil was lifted.   
  
You're finally awake.   
  
Her voice sounded calm, but with an undertow of panic; perhaps she had believed she had accidentally poisioned him. He snorted at the thought, then reached up to massage his eyes, which were sore from the rude introduction to light. He was laying down, splayed across the seats in a macabre parody of a grecian god enjoying the spoils of his victory. The only thing different in this case, was that this own bounty was a very hard, very cold and very unpredictable weapon pressing into his right breast. He gave a small groan of pain as he turned over to face her.   
  
What did you give me? I feel as though my head's been shoved under water for three hours.   
  
She nodded sympathetically, and offered him an entirely leathal looking, clear contraption that housed what appeared to be water. When he appeared wary, she rolled her eyes and tossed it at him, catching him in his shoulder. The thing was also heavier than it appeared, and it went crashing to the floor.   
  
It's water, professor. I assure you that I wouldn't poison you. As for the pills, they're...um....non magical sleeping draughts.   
  
She looked confused, searching for parallel word, and bit her lip.   
  
.   
  
He croaked the word, suddenly finding a fiery thurst sprouted in his throat. The water, though cool, tasted refreshing, but fabricated. As if weren't real water, as if these muggles had found ways to duplicate the crudest natural resource as well. He wiped the corners of his mouth, looking amused at the flushed, angry colour that rose in her cheeks. Obviously, she wasn't aqquainted with the wizarding dialect.   
  
Muggles are non magical peoples. You could say the vast majority of this earth. Most unfortunately for your kind, you have no magical aide, and are forced to salvage whatever desperate measures you can to survive.   
  
There was an odd gleam of triumph, replaced by an insulted pride. Judging from the venemous glint that suddenly faced him, he knew he had singed a nerve.   
  
We've done quite well,thank you very much. I don't find myself running away from an institution that's pretentious enough to think it could protect everyone in need.   
  
Her voice was tightly controlled, and one more caustic comment from his direction and he knew her resolve would snap. He regarded with half closed, predatorily roving eyes; she shifted oddly in her seat, trying to find another object as darkly enigmatic to stare at in the small compartment. He suddenly leaned forward.   
  
Don't ever, ever insult things you don't understand, little girl. You'll find that your tongue will cause you far more trouble than it's worth.   
  
This was uttered in a low, langorous hiss, a far more dangerous sound than if he had shouted at her. He forced her gaze to level his, and she flinched, retreating as far back into her seat as possible. She nodded, and was noticeably paler.   
  
The journey was an uncomfortable one, and several times she had gone outside to pace. Although regret was not exactly what he felt, he knew he shouldn't have gone off and scared her like that; it would certainly lessen her reason to protect him, as well their rappaport. If you could call it that.   
  
He ran the fingertips along the jawline of his face, dwelling briefly on her touch. He wondered how many others would have been brave enough to do such a thing; not even Harry Potter, boy wonder, would have summoned the nerve. He took a piece of hair between his hands, and absently ran his fingers down the length.   
  
She had warm fingertips, even thought the rest of her hand was cold.   
  
He turned his mind from this and settled his sharp chin into the cup of his scaly hand and stared out the window, into the increasingly blackening sky.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Haven't been getting many reviews for this one, even though it's my personal favourite. Hoped you all enjoyed that, and do not be afraid to offer suggestions. I know my grammar and spelling have a lot to be desired. 


	8. Glass Collar

  
They arrived in dusky silence, one sleeping and one wide awake. He observed the constant, shifting patterns of the moon obscured by tree branches scurry across her face. Her eyes moved incessantly beneath her lids, and he wondered if she always slept so tulmutously. Her head rocked back and forth, and she had whispered something fiercely that sounded like she was trying to ward something off.   
  
The train stopped, far more smoothly than any non-magic kind. In fact, the stop was so seamless, he hadn't realised they had arrived. The blackness was palpable enough to look still despite constant motion.   
  
She didn't awake. He nudged her with his foot, catiously. He was not under the pretense that she enjoyed gratuitous physical contact. She moved slightly, the width of a hummingbird's wingbeat. He grasped her arm, marvelling at how sleepwarmed she had become, and gently rattled it. Her eyes flew open, startled, then wary. It was hard to discern the blackness of the man rousing her from the pitch-dark of outside.   
  
I believe we're here.   
  
  
His words were spoken carefully and deliberately. She nodded and stooped to gather her belongings. She gave him a curious glance.   
  
Don't you have more than that?.   
  
He looked at his small valise and shook his head. He had never been an excessive packer, nor a hedonist where clothing and accessories were concerned.   
  
I require nothing more. How are we going to reach our destination?.   
  
He gestured to the absolutely deserted platform of the station. The lack of people made him uneasy and skittish.   
  
I have a car. Don't worry , I'm old enough to drive (she had noticed his disbelieving stare).   
  
If Severus believed broomsticks to be something of a rough ride, he had no idea that a car could be so sickening. The constant motion, as well as the artificially pungent fumes from the seats made him ill. She gave him a sympathetic look, and instructed him to roll down the window. He stuck his head quickly, not wanting his hair to be too ruffled by the wind.   
  
It was surprising that inside such a small vessel could be so dense. The seats practically caved beneath him, and he scoffed at the muggle's poor imitation of velvet. There were blazing, neon lights in front of him, each one ticking, dancing, flashing or making an odd sound. He pressed one hesistantly, and bit back a yelp as some goddawful music filled the front seat. She laughed nervously, then turned the knob down.   
  
Put your seatbelt on.  
  
She gave him a cursory overview, then continued to hum and drive, not noticing his consternation. What the hell was a seatbelt? He didn't require a belt, if she had noticed. He pretended to fumble for something as he desperately looked for what she was talking about. His hand slid over a cool, metal handle.   
  
Don't touch that!.   
  
She almost shouted, and his fingers immediately curled back into the sleeves of his robes.   
  
What was that?.   
  
The door handle. If you had opened it, you would've been pitched out of the car and been rolling happily into oncoming traffic.   
  
.   
  
He tried to say it casually, but he could not help the tremor that undermined his velvet voice. This was evidence of how vulnerable he really was, and how much trust both he and Dumbledore were placing in the girl.   
  
How do I use a seatbelt?.   
  
He asked this in a low growl, so the banality of his question would be evenly matched to the ferocity of his tone.   
  
You see that grey thing, in the corner? Yeah, well, pull it down, it's ok, it's supposed to do that. There is a small, metal button right by your right thigh. Put the...er...the seat cord into it, and click it.   
  
He looked at her with what would have been a skeptical sneer, save for the fact they were both swathed in darkness.   
  
And this does what, exactly? Because ceasing circulation to my extremeties?.   
  
She took a deep breath, and by the ragged exhalation, he could tell her was trying her patience.   
  
If we were to crash, Professor, theortically, that would stop you from diving headfirst into the windshield and either becoming decapitated or bleeding to death. Understand?.   
  
He didn't answer, only stared at the eerily elongated shadows on the passing road. He enjoyed the sound of rushing gravel and the odd, hyperspastic whizz of passing cars.   
  
He shifted again in his seat, trying to find yet another elusively comfortable position.   
  
We should be there in an hour. Sleep for now.   
  
I was planning on it anyway. Stimulating conversation does not appear to be your forté.  
  
He said this with a snarl and a smirk. He could feel her body become rigid, even though she was almost 2 feet away.   
  
I wish I knew magic.   
  
She confessed this mournfully. He started up, wondering why she had even bothered telling him.  
  
Why? So you could wear a hat and ride a broomstick like every other member of your youth brigade, Miss Ambruzzi?.   
  
He could not refrain from calling her the much detested nickname of so many of his other students. It was a habit and a defense mechanism, both of which had become interchangeable.   
  
So perhaps I could rid myself of you more quickly.   
  
This silenced him as soundly as someone spitting him in his face.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: I must have reviews! I want to further this story because there are so many possibilities, but no one seems to find it interesting! Anyway, whatever, I'll still keep posting and whoever reads....PLEASE REVIEW! 


	9. Divine

  
The air was noticeably frostier after this, and he continued to ride in sullen silence beside her. Frusturated by the fact that he would not be able to sleep for at least another day, yet indescribably weary, he stagnated.   
  
The flat where they arrived, a dismal, equally bleak manifestation of how his future was beginning to surface, was in a non descript, quiet suburban area of London. He sighed, wistfully watching the Big Ben's golden aura eminate into the foggy night. Without thinking, he brought his finger and began to trace patterns upon the air, each stroke growing more reckless than the last. When he noticed her staring at him, brown eyes in reserved amusment, he instinctively dropped his hand.   
  
Draw much?.   
  
He could sense her smirk, the cruel tautness of the corners of her mouth and the jeering glint in her eyes. He scowled, shoving his hands into the pockets of his robes, ignoring the stinging of his pride. However, when a bit of light had been cast upon her face by another car's headlights, he realised that she was not goading him. She was almost mulling over him, her mouth set in a line that he sometimes made whilst poring over a particularily difficult concoction.   
  
I'm sorry, if I've offended you. Drawing is one of my less....profitable talents .   
  
It sounded like an apology, but the ending had turned harsh and bitter in her mouth. He almost sympathised with her, immediately sensing upon unsaid implications. Her hand had snaked its way out of the darkness and gave his own elbow a tenative squeeze; he set his jaw, determined never to let her know how much he craved more substantial contact.   
  
The flat is this way.   
  
He sighed, his breath spiraling out of his mouth, an obscenely beautiful yet serpentine motion in one. This was his new life now; he was just another embittered, battered man.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: No one is reviewing! Erlack. Oh well. Hopefully, those who are reading are enjoying.   
  
  
  



	10. Tyger, Tyger

  
Sleep is a very particular paramour. Once Severus had entangled himself within her wiry body, he found it nigh impossible to summon the ability of extraction. His head, as soon as it had hit his uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and completely artificial pillow, he was asleep.   
  
The bed which she had given to him was little more than iron rods laid out in a horizontal fashion, and Severus would have not been surprised had he awoken with stripes across his back.   
  
The sheets, nothing like the charmed linens at Hogwarts, seemed to rub him raw in every single direction. He sighed and rolled over on his back, wincing as the thin mattress gave way to the cold steel. He ran his fingertips up his spine, ignoring the gnawing worry that his vertebrae were protruding far more than was healthy. He wondered, without any particular reason, how the girl was sleeping.   
  
The linens smelt artificially fresh, as if the muggles had to conjure up some overpoweringly odorous perfume to scent their sheets and disguise their filth. He rubbed his nose thoughtfully, wishing it weren't so sensitive to fluctuations.   
  
He smoothed the sheets out with his hand, observing the odd ripples made in the streetlight. It looked like a vast and snowy sand dune, the small whorls and ridges. He threw the coverlet over his head and stifled a groan; he had slept well enough for a few hours, but could his body not eke any more?   
  
There was a knocking, almost a caress at the door. He could hear the nervousness in her footsteps.   
  
.   
  
His voice was hoarse and untamed. He had yet to groom the way it sounded upon first awakening.   
  
I was wondering if you wanted tea or something. It didn't sound like you could sleep either.   
  
Her voice was soft, whispery; he knew that she probably hadn't even bothered going to bed. For some reason, tea sounded like some sort of odd equation to his problems. He nodded, and rubbed his eyes.   
  
Thank you.   
  
He opened the door, still not used to the scratchy, artificial carpet beneath his feet. He much preferred the cool shock of stone than the sickly sponginess beneath him. It made him feel unsteady, as if he would sink through if he dared tread too hard.   
  
She stood there in the hallway, a threadbare robe tossed about her, her hair unfurled and face impossibly fatigued. She gave him a frightened glance, then smiled nervously.   
  
I didn't remember you being so tall.   
  
He smirked, for he had often received the same response from many. Perhaps his lack of robes and defenses had robbed him of any intimidating aura.   
  
She shuffled down the hallway, rubbing her shoulders. Severus, in a rare regression of self pride, squinted. He fancied he could see her spine, prominent in its bleached white glory beneath her olive skin. Her hair swallowed the light, the pools from the hallway bulb slowly forming lazy orbs atop her scalp, then quickly slipping away. Severus found his fingers twitching to take her hair in his hands, and run his fingers through. He sufficed with his own, but found that self satisfaction is never the same.   
  
They entered the kitchen, an odd couple. The striking woman followed by a similarly striking man. There were two mugs upon the small table, steaming tendrils drifting towards the hanging lamp. She wrapped her fingers around hers instinctively,thumbs meeting directly where the handle curved out; Severus followed suit, unused to the smallish grip.   
  
He took a sip, and was pleased to find that she enjoyed her tea as strong as he did. It was not, however, as flavourful as that found within Hogwarts, but quite sufficient. He took another silent drink; she slurped loudly, and flushed.   
  
How does one pronounce your name, exactly?.   
  
He asked this casually, with the same off handed quality as one might ask for a light. She smiled, but in a way that revealed she had quibbled over this before.   
  
Nadyae. It was supposed to sound something like Nadia, but my father's mother's sister was named Nadyae. Personally, I've never been enamored by it. No one can seem to say it, and I have yet to meet another by the same name. You can call me Nadia if you want, it's actually what I prefer.   
  
He nodded, and took another sip, letting the caffeine seep in slowly. He liked the way her name swirled in his mouth, bittersweet. It sounded oddly the way her eyes might, if they could be named. He gave another appraising look.  
  
  
How old are you? I assume over the age of 16 if you are able to drive, and unless you actually do possess some kind of magic, under 25.   
  
He sounded gratingly superior.   
  
I'm 20, actually. My birthday was several weeks ago.   
  
She looked wistful, and stared into her mug. She poked a slender pinky into it, and proceeded to prod the contents. He gave her another infuriatingly senior stare.   
  
Did your mother never tell you that it's wretched table manners to play with your food?.   
  
She looked up, and offered him a view of the bottom. He peered in, then gave an indifferent shrug.   
  
I was just seeing if I could actually read my fortune through tea leaves. It must be an interesting ability.   
  
Severus gave a sharp laugh. He could picture Trelawney now, in all her melodramatic glory, predicting his death in third year; he also remembered believing her.   
  
There is a teacher, at Hogwarts, who is overpaid to stare into people's dreggs. She does little more than swoon and moan. A seer is a rare and often unstable person to come by.   
  
He answered with the distattachment and air of dismissal of one who has seen all, and who could never be surprised again. Severus ruefully believed that he indeed seen all, but that things never failed to surprise him. For instance, this girl.   
  
Stupid as I may sound, I find it quite unnerving to think that you can't respect someone who could read future's. As for their being unstable, well, it can't be much of a happy job, can it? I suppose anyone would become slightly touched after a lifetime of having to tell people their death.   
  
She gave another meditative look into the mug, and rose from the table to place it into a metal tub. He finished his own with an unceremonious gulp, and handed it to her.   
  
Tomorrow, I think I should take you shopping for clothes. You'll attract unnecessary attention in those....sheets.   
  
She gestured at his robes, and he gave a sharky smile.   
  
She shivered satisfactorily, and went to sink down into a large chair, reminiscent of those in Dumbledore's office. She pulled out a long, angular black tablet, and pressed something.   
  
He jumped as the screeching sound of someone's voice thundered through the room. She turned it down, and gave him an apologetic look.   
  
So, instead of using a hearth, you use a box to floo?.  
  
Severus gave the talking box another fascinated glance.   
  
What? Floo? This is a telly.   
  
Obviously she was confused as he. He shrugged, his hope of being able to escape quickly and painlessly from this fabricated prison vanished.   
  
Good night, then.   
  
He gave a stiff bow, and she returned his salutations with a distracted nod.   
  
Once inside his room, for chamber was no longer an appropriate noun, he sank into the bed, fighting his desolate feeling of isolation with every ounce of his body.   
  
His hand instinctively unfurled to reach for his wand, which he kept with him at all times, even sleeping, and he smothered his wail into the pillow when he did not find it.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: aahhh! In darkness, there shall be light. Or something, anyway, there will be light spots in this ficlet, I promise. Thanks for reviews. Glad to have positive responses.   
  
  



	11. Follow the Yellow Brick Road

  
Light through a muggle window, even when not artifcial, was gratingly yellow. The curtains, hanging limpidly to preserve modesty rather than decoration, half heartedly sifted small dots and prickles of sun through.   
  
Severus found that he was overheated, and sweating superabundantly beneath the stifling, artificial coverlet. His pillow was damp and organic smelling, and his hair was uncharacteristically matted against his face. He frowned as he sat up, his back more sore than it had been in years, and the signs of age seemed exagerated by the impossibly uncomfortable bed. He yawned and stretched his arms out, his lean, fleshless form camoflouged against the snowy sheets.   
  
He paced about the room, absently opening his valise and pulling out the most normal, inconspicuous clothing that he had brought with him. It was a fine, muted silk shirt (black, for he found it his most suited colour), and a pair of magically sewn slacks, for he had found muggle material insufficient.   
  
Severus seemed to tower over most everyone he encountered, but now, without his dramatic, flapping robes, grotesquely obsucring hair and sinister, commonplace sneer, he appeared only slightly elevated He had, for security and modesty'sake, bound his hair with a black piece of twine, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling cold and nearly naked without the weighted cloth of his normal uniform. He gave an indifferent glance in the mirror, and was disheartened by the fact he could not recognize his reflection.   
  
He opened the door, and softly, swiftly swept down the hallway, into the cozy kitchen where they had huddled before. There was a half drained mug upon the counter, though it looked quite cold. A large, metal box was placed against the wall, and he ran his finger over it. There was a handle, a shiny, tempting handle that practically yearned to be grasped and opened. He did so, fitting his slender fingers around it, and pulled gently. The hinges only opened halfway, and he wondered if this was some kind of odd alcove that was randomly placed in the wall. He pulled harder, and the door swung open, narrowly missing his face, for he had leapt back. Severus' eyes widened in the cold steam that billowed out, and the beautific ice crystals that formed upon small ledges inside the cave. The thing was breathing ice and snow, and his own breath was misty as he rapidly exhaled.   
  
That's an ice box.   
  
Her voice was gentle, but he could hear the deterring amusment in his naiveté. He started up, but the back of his head contacted a frigid, steel bar. Several chips of ice flew out and shattered upon the floor, about his feet. He gave it a searing glance, before slamming it tightly. Severus absolutely detested the artificiaility of the box, and stepped away from it. He noticed that there were several other interesting looking apparatuses scattered around the small space.   
  
She regarded him calmly, no expression of surprise or amusment writ upon her features, only with a smile, understanding smile.   
  
An ice box, or a refrigerator. It keeps food cool enough so it won't spoil for a while. I haven't anything in it of late, mostly because I've been too busy and have had to just order take away.   
  
She gave a deprecatory laugh, until she realised that he had no inkling of what she was trying to convey.   
  
I see.   
  
His answers for things he could not understand were always terse. Severus' pride forbid him from elaborating on any further questions, for he assumed rudimentary knowledge would be enough. He also assumed that he would not be here long enough to actually learn to use and depend upon it.   
  
What of the other things?.   
  
He gestured towards, among other things, a small, shiny rectangular box with a handle fashioned of similar material. It appeared as if something were to go inside of it, a storage of sorts. There was a metal cube, with two slits atop and an odd lever; he fancied that it rather looked like a torture implement.   
  
I....I thought that you would know at least...never mind. I'll have to teach you after we come back.   
  
She looked weary and sad, crossing her arms, hair dropping lightly in front of her features. He was suddenly compelled to go and comfort her, with an inexplicable urge to apologise for his ignorance of all things muggle. She looked up again, this time with an expression of distaste.   
  
Have you taken a bath yet?.   
  
Severus gave an involuntary sniff; not that he had ever been keen submerging himself beneath water. He hadn't noticed he had been sweating profusely in the first place.  
  
There is no tub in my chamb....sleeping quarters.   
  
She wrinkled her nose, then gave a small titter. Severus glared at her, and she glanced up in earnest regret for being impertinent.   
  
I'm so sorry. I had completely forgotten to tell you where the bathroom was.   
  
I had found it on my own, thank you, but I noticed no tub. There was only a rusty nozzle and a drain in the floor.   
  
Er...that's the shower. You have used a shower before?.   
  
Severus found his smugness replaced by a very unsettling feeling of stupdity.   
  
Oh. Am I really that odiforous?.   
  
She looked mildly uncomfortable.   
  
Well....er...no. But you might want to do something about your hair.   
  
He felt his facial muscles tighten. He gave her a very angry grimace; she winced and avoided his eyes. His hair, most discernible characterstic, had always proven to be somewhat of a deterrent.   
  
This is what I consider normalcy. I apologise if I cannot accompany trends of your muggle counterparts.   
  
His voice was flat, as was his expression. He enjoyed unseating her.   
  
She gave him a small look of timidity, as well as regret. She ran her own hands through her hair in a brief moment of self conciousness.   
  
He ran his fingertips over the smooth top of the table, marvelling at the ornate perfection of the wood. It was the smoothest grain he had seen, and all one colour; he wondered how she had managed to attain such fine wood. It was polished, without a doubt, by an extremely loving hand, or it was magical. An odd thought suddenly entered his head.   
  
Where did you get this?.   
  
She jumped at the sharpness of his tone, her brown eyes nearly watering at the dictorial way in which he adressed her.   
  
It was my grandmother's, then my sister's, now mine. It's gorgeous isn't it? Everyone whose looked at it has said they've never seen anything finer.   
  
She ran her own fingers across it briefly, a look of pride and sadness colliding in her face. She turned her hand over and slapped it slightly, hearing the satisfyingly damp sound of her skin on the surface.   
  
Anyways. You must buy new clothes, and I can get some provisions and food for us. I suppose this is your first time in an authentic muggle clothing store?.   
  
The falsity of the sudden brightening of her mood overshadowed her words. He nodded, fingers delicately clasped around his chin, searching to find some clue as to where her sadness blossomed. She smiled warily.   
  
Off we go, then.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N : No reviews? Oh well, then. I promise that this shall become really interesting!  
  
  
  
  
  



	12. Il Fait Beau

  
Severus was far more assailable without his robes. The cold air was sharply prickling against his skin, and the wind raked his scalp. He pitted his hands deep inside the pockets of the jacket she had given him, feeling the small clumps of lint she had failed to scavenge. His fingers curled around a coin, the chilly metal shocking the already softening underside of his palms.   
  
The material of the coat crinkled noisily when he moved, and even the smallest tug could send the whole bloody thing into a disastorous chorus of wretched music. He tugged at the sleeves, trying to stretch them over his wiry limbs; he nearly ripped an arm off in his zeal, and ceased when he caught her glancing at him oddly.   
  
Nothing was said between them, for Severus found comfort in solitude, rather than human companionship. The girl seemed fine with this, and she matched his long, graceful strides easily, her own hands encased tightly within her pockets.   
  
The wet leaves made oddly gratifying squelching sounds beneath them, and he found that he enjoyed the smell of freshly wet earth. It was autumn, nearly winter, and the city was truly a beautiful place when not sopping wet or harshly cold. Severus noted that the leaves in this place were not as punctually particoloured as in Hogwarts. As soon as October rolled around, in all its impressive thunderstormed, costumed glory, the leaves were nearly neon. Here, some were still green.  
  
She gave a loud sigh, her breath coming out in a plume of crystalline air, and she whipped the hair from her face.   
  
Severus felt another movement in the crook of his arm, and something very hot laying against his own hand.   
  
He glanced down, praying mightily that it was not some sneaky animal that had suddenly made a new home within his clothes. He was relieved and puzzled, however, when he found that she had slyly slipped her arm into the crook of his.   
  
Normally, he would have immediately pulled away, sneering and jeering. But now, he found himself adjusting to her lean limbs and long fingers.   
  
  
When he looked at her face, however, he saw that there was no difference in her expression, no flicker of revulsion or distaste. In fact, there was nothing; it was an easy, natural movement to move into his own personal space, and he found it far less invasive than anticipated.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: AAAHH! Thanks to all those who reviewed.Very muchly appreciated.   



	13. A Dwarf in Giant's Robes

  
The store when they had arrived, was madness and chaos, swirled into one bright, artificial palace of glass, plastic and far too much flesh inappropriately displayed for inclement weather. Severus found himself sending off alarmingly misanthropic grimaces in every direction, and that he was receiving looks equally hateful.   
  
Why are we here.   
  
He had hissed this to her, each syllable scorching her ear. He grasped her hand so hard, he could feel the bone beneath her thin skin. She gave him a tightlipped smile, warning him of making a scene in public, and pried his fingers off of her.   
  
Because my clothes aren't big enough, and you can't where the bloody robes.   
  
The robes are fine. They're not that out of place.   
  
In case you haven't noticed, professor, Halloween was a month ago.   
  
This conversation was conducted fluently, both speakers not moving their lips. Obviously the girl was as fond of ventriloquism as he.   
  
They had stopped in front of a store, the display full of effeminate mannequins,the men with protrusive hips bones and what appeared to be pointy breasts.   
  
Those....aren't supposed to be men?.   
  
He gave an indifferent jerk of his finger, and tilt of his head towards the pasty, plaster made people. She gave a snort, and shook her head.   
  
They're androgynous. I think they're women. It looks like they have breasts.   
  
She gave a small, uncomfortable laugh, just to ease his sense of ignorance. Severus shuddered; the muggles could not even be satisfied with the natural human form, as it were, and were now producing ridiculously disproportionate fantasies in shop windows. He remembered Hogsmeade and its robes, the displays with faceless dummies who waved cheerfully at passers by, and wondered how different the two societies were.   
  
She pushed the door opened, and he blinked as a vacuum of hot, recycled air was ushered into their faces. Because he was nearly a head taller than most who crowded below him, it gave him an unsightly view of the calamitous people who swarmed. Women, arms loaded with clothing that seemed an exact replica of what they were already wearing, bustled around his shoulders, a sea of over done, over sprayed, over dryed, dandruff-ed hair. He shuddered, jostling a girl behind him who gave him a spiteful poke in the shoulder.   
  
Severus suddenly noticed that Nadyae was missing, that she had suddenly vacated her not quite comforting spot in front of him, and that he could not longer differentiate her hair color and style from that of the others around him. He had the urge to suddenly scream in frustration, and even fear. He put his hands to his ears, muffling the dull roar of over stimulated consumerism, and closed his eyes tightly, eyelids aching from the vigor in which he had kept them clamped down.   
  
It was slow torture, standing in the middle of this idiocy. He hadn't needed new robes anyway, and besides, the prices seemed ridiculous, even if he wasn't familiar with pounds and pence and whatnot. He wanted to bolt, to crash through the glass and perform an especially kinetic crucio upon whoever it was that had built this wretched pile of glass and concrete.   
  
Suddenly, he felt a tugging on his arm, and without even opening his eyes, he followed the lead. He could tell it was her, by the way she smelled. This time, her aroma was sprinkled with freesia, and he made an attempt at a small smile.   
  
I'm so sorry, professor, I went to find clothes, and this woman practically accosted me.   
  
Twelve points, Ambruzzi, for a pitiful excuse.   
  
His response was automatic, and he hadn't realised he had uttered anything out of the ordinary until he felt her gaze on him. She was eyeing him in a loathingly concerned manner.   
  
  
I'm sorry, but I haven't.....   
  
She didn't complete her train of thought, however, when another woman unceremoniously dumped a pile of black and blue clothes into the girl's arms. Because she was so slight, she staggered beneath them. He caught some before they fluttered to the shoe sullied floor.   
  
What, pray tell me, are these?.   
  
He flapped a pair of stiff looking blue trousers in front of her face. She backed away, giving him an apprehensive stare. He glared at them hatefully. He plucked another item, this time an admittedly appropriate looking black sweater and black trousers.   
  
Those are denim jeans. They don't have anything that looks like what you came with. Besides, you need to wear something inconspicuous.   
  
She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, ready to deflate any objections. She remarkably resembled a very immovable Minerva Mcgonogal.   
  
I hope such shoddy clothing will not cost you dearly.   
  
His voice was a thick mixture of apples and bitter brandy, and she flinched. Although not particularly pleased with his position, he was gladdened that his old school charms were still fettered to him.   
  
It won't.   
  
She was whispering into a sweater, bravely fighting back humiliating tears of scorn and hatred. She gripped a shirt so furiously, she left damp streaks in the cloth.   
  
They departed from the madness, he clutching a rough handled sack, and she looking very distressed. She quickly wiped her face when she believed he wasn't looking. But she was wrong in her assumption.   
  
He would always be watching for her.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Heehee. Thanks for reviews. Title from Macbeth, dun remember lines or stuff, only context, when his former cronies are speaking of his ill-gotten crown. 


	14. Good of Bad

  
The clothing proved to be somewhat of an obstacle. Severus slithered into the pants with much difficulty, the raw, unrefined material quite confining. He hated the way it made him look; just like every other person he had seen traipsing past. He longed for the billowy freedom of his former robes.   
  
  
I'll be able to wear them soon enough.   
  
  
His voice rumbled through the floor, and he felt vibrations in the thin boards. But he bit his tongue as he said this, knowing that faith and hope were cruelly erratic companions.   
  
  
He stepped gruffly into the kitchen, feeling like an overwound puppet in jerky denim strings. He sat down slowly, easing himself into the nearest chair.   
  
  
She nodded absently at him, brown hair suddenly muted beneath the dim lights. He tapped his finger on the table, smoothing over the precious wood. He longed to perform a stripping spell, just to see what magic had been used to form it, but without ingredients or wand, he was helpless.   
  
  
Damn them all.   
  
  
She gave him a surprised look, eyebrows lifting almost to the tip of her forehead. She had obviously mistaken him for a man faultlessly composed.   
  
  
.   
  
  
The question was asked shyly, for both were aware that the answer was not appropriate for anyone elses' ears but his own. He looked at her again, trying to see past the delicate skin of her forehead, past her oddly darkened eyes which bore the banners of pain and anger freshly, and her small, versatile mouth.   
  
  
The man who sent me here.   
  
  
Severus felt a twinge of guilt for speaking ill of Dumbledore, but he found that having absolutely no contact, nor any sign of being able to return was eating at him. His mind was wavering, potions ingredients and recpies becoming hazy and interchangeable.  
  
  
Who's that?.   
  
  
She asked the question in an almost obligatory manner, trying not sound as if she were parroting what she had said before.  
  
  
He was my headmaster, probably the most powerful wiz....   
  
  
He stopped himself, knowing how ridiculous his formerly respectable title would sound in so utterly a muggle surrounding. The word almost sounded alien on his tongue now, and he knew that his magic was growing weaker. He balled his fists and placed them against his face, not knowing how to release this heady, disconcertingly foreign stream of emotions.   
  
  
What did you teach, at your old school? I've known that you were some kind of chemist or apothecary, but I hardly think that you worked at so dull a position.  
  
  
Her eyes were wide, bright, and curious; he turned away from her gaze because of its overeagerness. He remembered being her age once, and could only curse her for the mistakes that she would never make.   
  
  
I am a potions master. A brewer of illicit things, somewhat of an apothecary, only there is some degree of magic involved, and I am quite certain no apothecary has heard of the ingredients that I am required to use.   
  
  
There was a certain darkly humor to this, and his mouth suddenly relaxed. The tension between them was gone, and there was only the tenacity of her interest that was left.   
  
  
Could you teach me about potions?.   
  
  
The question left her mouth before she could consider it, and she clapped her hand over her lips, eyes closing in regret and dread. Severus wondered if she had ever been witness to his wrathful classes, and if this was why she could miraculously sense his impatience.   
  
  
I reiterate: the ingredients are un-findable in this society.   
  
  
But suddenly, his fingers and brain hummed with a certain need to brew, to simmer, stew, slice, grind. He could practically smell his old classroom again, and his stomach did a small loop of need.   
  
  
But couldn't there be some place....   
  
  
She trailed, and stopped, eyes wandering to another tangent, another place. She could discern where his impatience ended and where his absolutely consuming pining began.   
  
  
Severus swallowed, as if in pain, and began to shake his head. He heard the dry pops of several stiff bones in his neck, and his chalky fingers briefly touched his nape. He noticed that she narrowed her eyes at him, disbelieving, mouth still set in a skeptical line, and eyebrows threaded in a suspicious manner.   
  
  
You might have even made Slytherin.   
  
  
He said this in such an earnestly exhausted way, that the almost elderly tone surprised and disgusted him. Damned if he was going to turn into an old man in this place.   
  
  
Your house?.   
  
  
He didn't even notice with what familiarity she spoke of this, or how her eyes had very discreetly flashed in anger. In fact, he was almost too tired to rise from the table; he had to place his hands so he would not lurch.   
  
  
I have to sleep.   
  
  
He shuffled past her, heavily shooed feet clodding in painful collision with the malleable floor. His pants were unsuitable, and his cheap shirt contained none of the magical finesse that his now forbidden clothes held.   
  
  
He flicked the light on in the bathroom, dull flourescent showering with a very unflattering blue spectrum. He grimaced at what he saw, an old and bitter man with two glittering marbles for eyes and limp hair.   
  
  
This place, he choked, running fingers over the crude glass, is killing me.   
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Sorry I haven't been around lately, but I've been terribly busy. Anyways, just for warning in future chapters, I'm completely disregarding the rule that muggles can't actually see Diagon Alley. Yeah, so that's a bit of a lemon, but just so you won't all pelt me with flames and/or rotten tomatoes.   



	15. Marked

A/N: WARNING! GRAPHIC STUFF (not sexually related) AND SOME RELIGIOUS REFERENCES THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED OFFENSIVE!   
  
  
  
  
  
  
He did not sleep that night, he merely twisted and contorted himself into near-acrobatic positions to find some hard sought respite. He mulled over the thought of actually revealing Diagon Alley to her, but immediately clamped the thought from his mind. Not only was it too tempting, it was also impossible.   
  
  
Severus surprised himself by taking somewhat of a liking to her. He respected her, no doubt, for not turning him out, being the sputtering, nasty bastard he was. She was also bright and anxious to learn; he had gleaned that from the excited pitch of her voice as he fed a pitifully small trickle of information to her. She was attractive, no doubt, and Severus would have liked to believe that this had no bearing upon his judgment. But he couldn't ignore the sharp pull of his stomach, nor the ignobly submissive manner that she sometimes had cornered him into.   
  
  
Severus Snape had not liked many in his lifetime, and now that his former friends and supposed allies had rallied for his departure, he found his near-misanthropic list become positively hermetic. He could count on his hands the number of people he was on speaking terms with, and on one hand the number of people he allowed himself to trust.   
  
  
He had long since given up sleep, being that the room was too hot, and the hissing radiator was placed in alarmingly close proximity to his head, and he was rather wary that it might combust. It smelled dusty in here, as he tentatively took a deep breath. He wished he could open the window, and behold the massive spinets and towers of his former home once more. Severus, not usually a maudlin man, was becoming homesick.  
  
  
He rose up from the bed, ignoring the wheezy sheets, and pulled himself towards the bathroom. He flicked the light on, the gassy fluorescent bubbling warningly at its lack of power, and went towards the shower. He turned the knobs cautiously, not wanting to scald himself before he could even fit in a decent bath.   
  
  
He undressed stiffly, feeling his age in his knees and neck. Starkly naked was a surprising display of his gaunt physique. Surely no Oliver Wood or Harry Potter, there was still an unrefined power and energy that flexed in the bloodless tendons of his muscles. He was long and lean, torso so precariously thin, it almost appeared corseted. He had no fat on him, given that he ate the amount of what a starving man might barely survive on, and he had lived this way for years. Severus was glad he had no excessive amount of hair to boast of, and was absolutely disgusted by the way certain men (Sirius Black, in this case) went off spouting their masculinity by wearing slightly untucked robes, a tiny trickle of coarse hair sprouting. His arms were his least favourite part, and as he beheld his Darkmark and shuddered, there was little doubt as to why.   
  
  
The branding was the most unpleasant bit, it was done in the pit of one of the Malfoy manners, somewhere in Transylvania (no one had ever accused Lucius of being subtle). He was goaded on by partially intoxicated friends, but also by his own recognition that he was a man now, and therefore ready to assume responsibilities that were to be handed to him. In the center of the clearing of bodies, mostly cloaked or masked (even then he found this a distastefully theatrical practice), there was a massive black throne, made of darkened steel or silver. Several men had carried him over their heads, each of the Deatheaters hand's passing briefly over his bereft form. Silence ensued the rather rowdy ceremony, and two men, so large in stature that he instinctively shrank from them, grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him into the seat. A dark object was placed over his head, and he felt as though there was a nest of nettles in the vicinity of his forehead from the way it was scratching him.   
  
  
This is where Severus grew nervous, and began to shift uneasily, holding the cold arms of the throne in his sweaty palms. He heard a hissing from his right, and he clearly detected the scent of burning metal and another element he could not identify. There was another kind of silence now, not from fascination with a nervous newcomer, but one that accompanies respect, grudging or otherwise, for one's leader. Severus' heart skipped beats as he heard the tormentingly slow footsteps of his famed almost-master.   
  
  
Ah. A new addition.   
  
  
His voice was a throaty gurgling hiss, and it could not help but sound repellent to Severus' ears.   
  
  
Is our lamb ready?.   
  
  
Now it was mockingly concerned, and Severus grew continuously discomforted in his restraints. And whatever was placed on his head was now causing blood to flow into his eyes.   
  
  
I see he wears the crown well. Let us hope he proves his worth.   
  
  
Severus realised that Voldemort was speaking of the Crown of Thorns, some muggle myth of a man who was tortured and crucified, but was ultimately martyred for the sins of mankind. He could not help but feel a trickle of terror pool in his belly.   
  
  
Is he ready?.   
  
  
He began to nod, but from the monotonous, droning answer from the crowd, he knew that Voldemort was speaking only to them, and pointedly ignoring himself. Only one person disagreed.   
  
  
No, my lord. I do not believe that this..._boy_ (the words were spoken with harsh contempt) can possibly comprehend the difficulties of the tasks that you set before us. He treats this merely as a passing fancy.   
  
  
Severus felt the tightening of furor reign over his fear. Malfoy, of course, was debating his chances at ever being able to serve loyally and obesquiousley. His fists coiled in their tethers, long nails cutting into soft, unprotected skin.   
  
  
I see no evidence.   
  
  
The voice came out in an impatient hiss, and Severus felt a triumph seep through his blood. He could picture Malfoy's feminine face slink back into the crowd, purple with disappointment.   
  
  
Tell me, servant, are you ready? Prepared to carry out tasks of perhaps a more graphic nature? Prepared to purify the sullied blood of wizards? Prepared to cleanse our kind and rid ourselves of unnecessary enemies, as well allies? As Deatheaters, we need no one, only one leader.   
  
  
Severus felt something else surge through him, a newfound drive. Suddenly, he wanted his wand in hand, the thrill of killing was beginning to take him. His hands wrenched at themselves to wrap around someone's throat. His teeth and lips longed to taste the blood of those traitors who had dirtied and intermingled. There was a laugh of both appreciation and surprise from Voldemort.  
  
  
I see your mettle is strong as any Dark wizard's. Let the branding commence.   
  
  
He heard someone creep stealthily up next to him, booted feet whispering over the floor. Suddenly, four hands were placed on his wrist and he felt the bodies circle him. And there it was.   
  
  
A hot, excruciating pain seized him, and he threw his head back, only driving the thorns further into his scalp. He bit his lips in a wretched attempt to retain the screams that were gurgling in his throat, and he shut his eyes so hard, he thought he had blinded them. The brand was pressing more deeply into him, yet he felt no blood, nor any breaking of his skin.   
  
  
Nothing but pain existed in his solar plexus, and the stars exploded in brilliant spasms of torment. The sun began to orbit the earth, and moons collided and crashed within him. Every memory, good or bad, his mother scolding him, his first horse, his sister dying, almost drowning in their lake, Dumbledore trying to discover what was wrong, the Whomping Willow, James Potter's damnably sincere eyes, Lily Potter's equally unfeigned concern, Sirius Black suddenly becoming a massive dog which assailed him. All these memories were pouring out of him, and he had the terrible, foreboding feeling that once they were released in a fume of heat and blood, they would never again be his own. He writhed under these stranger's grip, and suddenly his mouth slackened, and a sound of such baritone fury was discharged, he felt the brand-maker quaver.   
  
  
And it was over, and the brand was removed. The thorns were pulled back from his face, and he found himself facing a crowd of kneeling, obeisant people. He glanced at his arm, and smiled satisfactorily at the appropriately blackened Mark that now adorned him. A black robe and gloves were slipped between his hands unquestioningly, and when he dared meet some of the other Deatheater's eyes, he felt a familiar pull and an emotion he thought would forever evade him: belonging.   
  
  
As he turned to look at Voldemort, who had his arms crossed in an almost fatherly way, Severus saw something else that frightened him. Beneath the half hooded, reptilian eyes that stared back at him in admiration and respect, beneath the bloodless skin that was taut over his face, the two slanted nostrils that flexed periodically, Severus saw something.   
  
  
He saw a man, but with clarity and such precision, that he almost gasped.  
  
  
In that face, where every particle of soul had departed him, Severus saw himself.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: For those who didn't get my weird allusions, the crown of thorns and Voldemort's reference to him as a lamb are strictly sacrificial, alluding to the fact that the now initiated Deatheater may require his life to be taken, but only for the good of the wizarding world (supposedly) and that their self sacrifice is necessary, and Christ's similar experience on the cross.   
  
  



	16. Injured Angel

  
  
It was the same in every vision. He saw the same face, the same eyes, the same shocking revelation that both he and Voldemort were forged of the same mettle.   
  
  
And every night he would lay hissing into his pillow, desperately clawing at his arm to remove the trace of his great and present shame, trying to bite back shrieks of pain that still returned to him, almost three decades after he had been branded.   
  
  
  
It was no different here, in this place, though Severus suspected it was made worse by his strange and utterly unsympathetic surroundings. At least in his chambers he would create useless potions with his deteriorating hands and trembling fingers.   
  
  
Here, he was forced to sit back and watch himself decay. A living, breathing corpse whose soul had long since fled.   
  
  
He suspected he knew what it was like to have a Dementor's Kiss performed. To carry around the dead weight of a body that wasn't really existing, to breathe in a futile effort to create further disorder in this already irrepairable universe.   
  
  
The water was no relief to his mysteriously aching muscles. He suspected that his body was perfectly entuned to his new home, and was therefore trying to make every simple feat an extraordinarily difficult fiasco. He rubbed the soap listlessly over himself, closing his eyes as the metallic smelling water coursed over him, each droplet thrashing his skin in a surprisingly soothing manner.   
  
  
It felt like tropical rain, this shower. He smiled, almost gratefully, into the metal sun whose liquid rays could alleviate, if only temporarily, the very constant pain he suffered.   
  
  
Severus had learn to overgrow his resentment that his students could never, ever share or partake in the torture he had endured. He was angry because they hated him baselessly. What were a few scathing remarks and pitifully little points deducted compared to rotting in one's filth in the basement of a Malfoy mansion? Or grovelling in front of God's most loathsome creatures? Or, slowly but surely, becoming a half life? These children would go about their lives, dreaming of Quidditch and families of their own, while he would dream of a mercifully short, torment free death. And, just to throw in a bit of narcissistic luxury, a proper burial.   
  
  
He knew, and perfectly well, that redemption was and never would be an option for him. He had already traded his soul for power that he never aquired, and had squandered good intentions on misspent missions. Saving Potter's life was one of the last selfless acts, pathetic, he knew, but still. He couldn't bear it himself to think that an otherwise promising, if not hateful boy, was to be killed by a stuttering, painfully inept fool who thought he ruled the world because he shared half a head and brain with a repellent serpent.   
  
  
His torso relaxed in the heat, as did his loins. He leaned back, tilting his head and offering up his throat to the steady stream of water that ceaselessly wept on him.   
  
  
Women, Severus Snape had concluded, were a mystery and puzzle for men like Sirius Black to configure. In practicality, he had never fooled himself into thinking women would swoon over his beaked nose or oddly misshapen teeth. Not to mention his fiercely defensive comments that were merely that: a defense. He had too many times found himself biting back stinging tears for the sympathy of the victim whom upon his tongue had uncoiled itself.   
  
  
He cringed underneath the water, then feeling the warm rivulets slowly feed themselves into the lines of his face. He had kissed Hermione Granger once, a lust that had befallen him out of Gods know where. She was weeping in the corner, emotions and words choked up and trapped in the fragile entity of her being, after Mcgonagal had been killed. She had her arms crossed, a fleshy, ineffective human shield against guilt and all things that come of surviving something that one shouldn't have. He had seen her, bristled hair on end, brown eyes shattered and glassy. And he had taken her, nearly swooped down upon her in his black, funeral swathed arms. She had looked at him in terror, her fear and revulsion blinding her to reality. She had pressed against him urgently, hungry little hands and mouth everywhere at once. Her breasts, firm but not overripe, were straining against his own chest, and her heartbeat was erractic and quivering in comparison to the steadiness of his. She was not mewing piteously, or groaning erotically; she was weeping into his mouth, he could taste the salty biterness of her tears and the dormant furor at herself for being too panicky to save her beloved. She gnashed her teeth together, kissing him with a bruising forcefulness that left its mark upon his lips, and her scratches engrained in the wood of his being.   
  
  
He had furled his hands into her hair, pulling her head up, her eyes open and bland, not seeing anymore, but somewhere farther, and hopefully happier. Severus didn't care that she couldn't see him, rather the opposite: he was glad. She never closed her damning eyes, her accusing stare and buttery lashes. She screwed her face up, trying to mimic passion, but found she could only unleash a scream of frusturation that equaled his own. She had pulled away from him then, and had said something that Severus doubt he could forgive her for.   
  
  
He turned off the taps, water becoming uncomfortably hot in his most private areas, and his skin starting to pickle. The condensation was syruppy on the glass, and he wiped it with the palm of his hand, the indent crackly where he had scarred himself so many years before.   
  
  
She had backed away from him, eyes widening in terror and self disgust, hands over mouth that had hungrily suckled him. And he felt disgusted himself, feeling a damp and sweaty pedophile.   
  
  
Why did you stop.   
  
  
He was trying to mock her, trying mask the imminent and overwhelming pain that suddenly began, a knife between his ribs, interrupting his heartbeat for a grave second.   
  
  
.   
  
  
She was trembling, hesistating because truths, as Hermione Granger had learned early on, were never the thing that you never wanted to hear.   
  
  
Because how could anyone love you.   
  
  
And Severus' eyes were blackened, vision temporarily dismantled, outermost senses dulled. All he was left with was his constant, disparraging inner voice, and the beat of his heart, which was gradually weakening anyway.   
  
  
He had often heard the dreadful tale of Beauty and the Beast, and dismissed it as maudlin, muggle sentimentality. But now he suddenly knew that there were no Beauties, and that only Beasts could exist in this non-paralleled universe. That for every rose, the thorns outweighed the prize, and that eventually some form of natural decay would conquer it anyway.   
  
  
And Hermione Granger stared. Stared with an emotion so fastidiously fascinated, but loathesomely repelled: pity. She pitied him, the girl whose teeth had grown to outsize her head, and whose hair any number of Hippogriffs could have nested him. She pitied him, this abominably smart creature whose mind and bluntness had alienated her. She gave him a cloying look, a pleading look, a self servingly beseeching look that begged of him to allow her to help him, for her own soul's sake.   
  
  
And Severus Snape, being the descpicable victim that even he could no longer reliably able to be, tried to strangle her. He had tried to wrap his fingers around her ivory throat, feel the wonderful malleability of her too-nasal voice chords against his fingers, the collapsing of her larynx, the gurgle of her last, unintelligble words, the frenzied, animal desperation hidden behind her eyes. But he couldn't. He could only buckle, weakened and confused, utterly venemous to anyone in sight, but utterly defenseless as well. He felt much the cat without claws, or the snake without fangs.   
  
  
It was not the first time that Severus had cowardously retreated. And he knew that it would not be his last. The burn of her gaze, and her hot, sudden charity were driving him back, stinging his very skin in their youthful earnestness.   
  
  
She was right.   
  
  
No one could love him, and he expected nothing less. However, knownig things and hearing them are very different. The comment still took his breath away, the abruptitude of his whole life uttered in a single sentence was a malignant shock. And he was not fond of, nor ever would be, of surprises.   
  
  
He lay down in his bed, actually feeling reassured at the uncomfortable pressure of the springs against his spine. He fell into sleep, stumbling and screaming and thrashing every second. He fought sleep with an adrenaline tipped sword, but he could not win. Sleep was irresistable, irrepressable and irreconcilable.   
  
  
He was jolted awake suddenly, by the presence of another in his bed. There was a soft indentation where there should only have been a cold and deserted plane of empty matress. He felt fingers trail across his forehead, and in spite of himself, he felt his features relax, his furrowed brow finally release itself, and his frown subside.   
  
  
The girl. She was trying to comfort him somehow, trying to relieve him of pains and plagues she could never comprehend. He smelled her, gently, she smelled like warm vanilla and citrus. But something slightly hardened, almost metallic. Her fingertips were refreshingly chilly, and he found his face gravitating towards her, his nose and skin seeking out her magically soothing touch.   
  
  
His hand was entwined in something, someone else's equally dexterous fingers, and their embrace had been overlong, for the dense matrix between skins had grown damp, beads of moisture sliding down the satin of her own palm and the roughened face of his. But it was comforting in ways that Severus would never be able to explain, this stiflling touch. The fact that another being was prolonging unecessary contact.   
  
  
Her hand had cupped his face and he felt her lay her head against his chalky, skeletal shoulder , and nestle there, chilly tip of her nose nudging his jugular vein slightly. Her hair was fanned out, as well as it could, for it was rather short, and had a pleasant, if not slightly artifically clean smell. She spread her arm out over his chest, over his beating, hardened, but still painfully sensitized heart. He felt the warm plushness of her breasts, but more importantly, the warm plushness of the beating core that seperated, yet conjoined as her own rythym slowly steadied itself to his.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Sorry for gramatical errors, but my muse has been so quickly ignited,that I had to start writing this, or else I would be punished by another week's writer's block. Anyways, thanks for all the helpful criticisms and whatnot. I would really appreciate reviews. 


	17. Trace Elements

  
  
  
In accordance to all popular and completely biased belief, Severus was wholly unpredictable.   
  
  
It was not the sensation of an empty, cold dent, nor the smell of freshly slept-in sheets that awoke him. It was the smell of tea.   
  
  
He awoke nose first, as always, carefully whiffing the unfamiliar and excitingly alien territory around him. He let the blackness swim behind his lids for several minutes before he eased them open reluctantly. The sunlight hastily filled his head, and a slow, unnervingly dull ache began at the base of his skull and charged forward unhindered.   
  
  
The tea, brewed in the manner which he himself favoured, ushered forth such memories, that he opened his eyes fully this time, expecting his stones, simmering cauldrons and green and silver canopied bed to greet him.   
  
  
But the illusion was dispelled, the formerly magnificent surroundings slowly melted and liquified into the tiny, squashed and ardently over heated room. He stretched his knuckles again, acutely aware of another's presence, the girl's curious, but not prying gaze, and the coils of steam that were lazily drifting from her mug.   
  
  
He felt enlivened, and so vigorously rested, that for a few ridiculous, but unearthly seconds, he believed himself capable of anything. He rubbed his nose, which was cold, and found himself wishing for the small bundle of her body, wedged beside his own.   
  
  
He heard the dull, clunky roar of the mug being set on the bed table beside him, and the soft sigh that she allowed herself. She sat on the edge of the bed, her slight weight barely making a dent in the malleable springs.   
  
  
Nothing was said between the two of them, for circumstances had already advanced beyond being uncomfortable. She was intrigued by him, and though Severus found it distasteful and unprideful, he was fascinated by her.   
  
  
Her instinctual comforting was just that: instinct. A motherly ember had been awaken and kindled by him, and though it was not blazing, it was still vibrant. He hadn't minded that she had crawled into bed with him, though it was far more difficult to ignore the small curves of her breasts against him than he would have anticipated.   
  
  
He had also found it interesting that he hadn't awoken with a dull and painfully throbbing erection that had plagued him for as long as he could remember. Severus was enormously relieved at this, for he could never have imagined both their shames if he had grown hard with her wrapped around him.   
  
  
She reached out tenatively, and tapped his foot, fingers extending so the rest of her wouldn't have to. He pulled away from her, and she acknowledged this as his being awake.   
  
  
I've brought you tea. I thought you might need it.   
  
  
Perhaps this was a proffered apology, or a sampling of her hospitality, but he was oddly gratified by this inanely simple gesture.   
  
  
He nodded and sat up, ignoring the plaintive buckles and cracks in his back that they both heard. He reached out, and without looking, allocated the mug and brought it to his lips without breaking eye contact.   
  
  
He noticed that she neither flinched nor looked away, angrily embarrassed by him. In the beginning, she was nearly walking about on tip toes, trying to avoid him around corners, and not meet his infamously stern gaze.  
  
  
You keep having the same nightmare.   
  
  
She gestured at the bed, the tangled sheets and mangled pillow. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back, wishing her gone, yet painfully yearning for her presence.   
  
  
I've had the same nightmare for twenty years now. I've learned to administer my own cures.   
  
  
He was speaking, of course, of rather heavy dosages of Dreamless Sleep, among other soporific narcotics, but she would never have known this.   
  
  
I didn't mean to invade...you were just screaming so much...I thought someone was killing you....   
  
  
She hesitated, knowing by some gift of foresight, that she was treading extremely volatile ground. Severus would never warn her of how close her prediction had come.   
  
  
It's fine. A natural reaction. In fact, I thank you.   
  
  
He tried to keep the bite out of his voice, tried to keep the condescension that was the pestilence of his relationships with others, but found that traces of it still remained in his intonation.   
  
  
Next time, I'll just leave you alone.   
  
  
She was trying to apologise again, trying to alleviate whatever distaste she had heard in his voice beforehand.   
  
  
Severus had honestly not minded it. She had wedged herself into him, a ball of arms and legs, her thighs cleverly wrapped around his own, encasing him in a fleshy tangle. Her hand had never left his own, though her other arm was thrown across his chest, her palm sheltering his heart. They lay in a distant stupor, a lethargic battlefield, her own wiry frame trying to protect his. She had afforded a view of the part of her hair, the gleaming whiteness violently contrasted with the sable mane that flowed around it. She enveloped him in an unconscious, intimate embrace.   
  
  
I really didn't mean to fall asleep....but I...you were thrashing around and crying and....my mum used to come in and sleep with me till my nightmares were over. It was the only thing I could think of.   
  
  
She gave him an absent stare, and he immediately saw that she was reminiscing. He wondered what possible nightmares a child could have that would have brought a mother to wrestle it back to sleep.   
  
  
She shifted her weight again, obviously uncomfortable by his lack of vocal scathing and the scrutiny which usually accompanied his stares.   
  
You kept shouting a name. Voldemort?.   
  
  
She knitted her eyebrows together, not noticing the physical repulsion the name caused him. He felt himself tense up, a flimsily built being of over- grated nerves.   
  
  
Voldemort. It is he from whom I run.   
  
  
Severus spoke cryptically and sparsely when he spoke of Voldemort. He also extremely disliked the fact that he was seeking refuge from a wizard whom he could most likely best in a duel.   
  
  
He killed my sister.   
  
  
Her face didn't crumple, and the tears that can sometimes escort these kinds of confessions, didn't stream. In fact, she looked positively calm and peaceful, the center of gravity. Severus swore he could detect relief hidden within the words.   
  
  
I believed that to be so. How did your sister die?.   
  
  
He knew what an utterly bastardly thing it was to say, and in what a cruelly blunt manner he had demanded this, but she seemed not to mind.   
  
  
She was trying to help half bloods and non magi's that were being pursued by Deatheaters. She never let on what she was doing, mostly because we would die if she told us, but also because she was afraid to be thought mad. He found her, eventually, and he tortured her. She never broke down, not even in the end when he used physical implements instead of bloody spells.   
  
  
She looked so angry, so wretchedly furious and utterly helpless, that it evoked a long lost sense of pity in Severus. She was twisting the bed sheets between her hands, her nails shredding the material.  
  
  
Then perhaps you should also know that I am a former Deatheater.   
  
  
He knew it was wiser not to tell her, and that she would most likely come flying at him. He braced himself for her attack, for the pent up rage that had plagued her so deviously in those years. He had made his tone carefully impassive and dispassionate. He sounded like one under the influence of Veritaserum.   
  
  
There was a look of such disgust and loathing, a repulsion so strong that it sank like lead through his skull. He felt assailed, naked and starkly stripped of any defenses with which he might have armed himself.   
  
  
He almost pitied her, this girl who had unwittingly crept into bed with one of her sister's probable killers.   
  
  
You don't deserve to live.   
  
  
She said it very calmly, though with thinly veiled bitterness. She rose up stiffly, her body having trouble accepting the grim and troubling news. Severus watched her silently, knowing well that what she said was true.   
  
  
She edged towards him, furious gaze prying into his own, not allowing his eyes to wander. She grasped the handle of the tea, and with a swift motion brought it to the side of his head.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: A semi-cliffie. Anyways, thanks for the reviews and profuse thanks for Ami-the-writing-queen, bitterdiva, lady jeanetta and Raven Xavier. 


	18. The Doomed and The Dead

  
Severus didn't duck as he saw the creamy reflection of the china against the dark grain of the headboard, nor did he blink as the roiling, dark liquid gushed over his face.   
  
The water was tepid, her anger was not.   
  
  
She dropped the cup, tossing it with wild and uncertain abandon, hearing the scatter and squeak of the infinitesimal shards over the floor. She was trying to be destructive, but found that she had nothing to destroy. This was at her most primal stage of grief, the breaking point of her sanity and the perdition of her mind as she knew it.   
  
  
Her wrists came out, swinging at his face, her eyes still forcing back the tears which were gaining an unbearable pressure at the base of her head. She wasn't screaming, in fact, neither of them made a sound. It was supernatural play fighting, both opponents incredibly, and inhumanly graceful.   
  
  
She came at his face again, and he, without even hesitating, nor looking away, grasped her wrist. This stalled her, and she sputtered, not knowing whether to fight to freedom, or try and continue damaging her closeted antagonist. She crawled onto the bed, her hand still dangling above her, other hand still coming at him.  
  
  
He pulled himself up, allowing himself a small grunt of exertion as she tried kicking him between his legs.   
  
  
None of that, girl. You fight fairly.   
  
  
His voice was chiding, almost fatherly. He was trying to teach and rebuke her.   
  
  
She punched him, tiny hand bunched in an equally tiny fist, between the ribs, hazardously close to his heart. He groaned in momentary pain and let go of her wrist, clutching his chest, staggering on the flimsy mattress.   
  
  
And this is where she made her mistake.   
  
  
She charged at him, too inflamed to care, colliding her head with his shoulder, her mouth pressed into his collarbone. He fell over onto her, successfully scissoring her legs and inserting his knee between them and wriggling himself into a position where the use of her hands would have proved futile.   
  
  
She knew that the fight was over as soon as it had begun, but because untended woe can grow into a rampant lust for damage, she still attempted to best him.   
  
  
She still wasn't crying, and Severus was concerned. Her eyes were nailed firmly shut, and she lay beneath him, an unwilling, human coffin. She stiffened at his touch, her head still buried oddly into his neck. An perversely armorous position, Severus thought grimly, still not releasing her.   
  
  
The girl's face was beginning to redden, cheeks flaming because he was sure that he was hurting her. Her arms wrenched above her head like that were an affirmed discomfort, as was his bony knee wedged against her rather delicate thigh. Her mouth formed a moue of pain, and a small, hissing whimper escaped her. Her fingers began to gyrate between his hands, and Severus was perfectly aware he was most likely jerking on a tendon.   
  
  
She wrapped her legs around his, and he found himself falling into her. She freed herself from his grip, and in the oddest of gestures, brought her hands around his back, embracing him in an injured hug. Her fingers met themselves around his back, and her legs were wound around his own. Her face was shuddering into his shoulder, and he felt dampness spread through his shirt.   
  
She was crying. Copiously.   
  
  
He said nothing, and finding the state both of them were in, incredibly uncomfortable. Dealing with grieving females of his own house was one thing. Trying to soothe a woman whose sister one of his cohorts had most likely killed was another. He relaxed, easing himself onto the bed again, pulling her on top of him, finding it ironic that he would be the comforter this time, and not the wound.   
  
  
He ran his hand awkwardly up her back, finding that clothes did little to add any bulk upon her lean, almost starved frame. There was a sob, halfway between a dry hiccup and an exclamation, that he felt form in her chest and escape into his shoulder. Her grip was tenacious, and he had no hope of being able to escape until she had released him in sleep induced weakness.   
  
  
He ran his hand over his eyes, massaging them. This early morning activity had deadened his depth for thinking, yet stirred his susceptibility for pain.   
  
  
She shifted her face slightly, and he felt the ticklish trickle of her warm tears ease themselves into his shirt, dripping slightly off his back and pillow themselves into the mattress below him. She shifted into him more, digging herself into his body again, and Severus ignored the raging and long neglected need for sex.   
  
  
She was absently stroking his back, fingering the small bones which occasionally revealed themselves as he shifted. Her fingers remained constantly interlaced, and he could feel the drumming of blood in the palm of her hand.   
  
  
Her eyes closed, more tears jetting out and skidding over the damp and sticky surface of her face. She sighed again, ribs raising themselves in a melancholy expansion.   
  
  
Severus' mouth was hovering above her forehead, the heat expelled from her was intoxicating his lips, causing them to twitch gently and ease a very pensive kiss onto her face.   
  
  
She shuddered at his touch, raising her face in exploited questioning, eyes hovering between anger, disgust and wanton need for more. He pulled away from her, but she bade him to stay by gripping onto his shirt sleeve and pulling him very roughly into her mouth.   
  
  
He was very amused that she didn't close her eyes, nor did she swivel her head to avoid bumping into his excess of nose. She regarded him thoughtfully, lips primly pressed against his own, with her dark and swirling eyes.   
  
  
He was unmoving, only wishing she would ply him into something more human. He didn't move, he breathed subsistently and his hands remained splayed over her back. He was testing her, provoking her, and he was also frightened of her. She pulled away, obviously discouraged by his lack of reaction. Severus inclined his head a bit, to gaze at her in smug and self restrained satisfaction.   
  
  
She parted her lips, the sound of damp skin pulling away from damp skin.   
  
  
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A/N: Many profuse thanks to Starlight for writing more than their share of reviews. Yeah, so we discover Severus is a man with a penis, so its all good. Anyway, felt like being a bit naughty in that chapter, but not full blown out porno. I find the chase more erotic than the sex, but its most likely that that view is definitely not shared by all. Anyway, tokens of thanks for everyone who bothered to read this. Maybe he will actually get some where. Or, maybe not. ^_^


	19. As Little a Web as This

Author's warning: some allusions to rape, some disturbing sexual play. Sensitive readers might not like the implications, but its not even close to NC17.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He focused his gaze intently on her eyes, observing the speckled irises interspersed with gentle colouring of browns and gold. They weren't eyes to get lost in, but certainly another path with which he could divert himself.   
  
  
Something firmly locked about her face, a keyhole he couldn't discern. Her hand grasped his own, her damp fingers squeezing his much injured knuckles. She was breathing heavily, Severus could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against him. A breath caught in her throat and escaped in a furious sob that seemed to travel through both of them.   
  
  
You don't know what you want.   
  
  
He spoke decisively, eyes lowering to mere inches above her own. Her breath escaped her lips, the velvet of her mouth moving in wordless exclamation.   
  
  
The grip on his hand suddenly loosed, and her body lost the exquisite tension it held only seconds earlier. She rolled her head back, exposing too much throat than was good for her, the vein of her neck pulsing in agitated sadness.   
  
  
Severus closed his eyes and dipped his head into her throat, taking in her most feral scent. He pressed his lips against her vocal chords again, feeling the hum and buzz of her basest structure. The collar bones of the woman splayed before him pressed upon his forehead, and the roving spheres of his eyes behind locked lids encountered several nubs of flesh.   
  
  
He raised his hands, hands wet and glistening from her own, the aroma of her sweat flooding him. He shuddered, a sudden sensation that he thought had died out was entering him. He swallowed back his tears, the bitterest liquid for which he was most suscept. His immunity and dampening of his feelings did nothing for him now.   
  
  
He pressed her shoulders gently, kneading her flesh, noting dully how cold she was. As if the heart that was pelting against his own chest the night before, beating with such a bruising force that he may as well have been connected to her, was dead. Wizened and imprisoned in a woman damaged by her maker.   
  
  
His fingers edged themselves into her shirt, pausing at length to allow her admission. She didn't respond to him, only shifting slightly so the circulation of his already frigid fingers would not be completely dammed.   
  
  
Severus glanced at her face, her eyes were open now, staring at the headboard with a glassy but bitter expression. She was reliving something he had no wish to encounter, jousting with a memory atop the stallion of misremebered time.   
  
  
He rubbed her shoulders, feeling, with an odd bolt of sentimentality, if she had wings.   
  
  
Severus lifted her with the gentelest of embraces, holding in his hands the most precious of cheribums. He cradled her against him, his head slipping lower, past the softeness of her breast and the rigid peak of her nipple, searching for her heart.  
  
  
And he pressed his mouth against her, just below her ribs that parted for him, Moses in the darkest of days, and screamed into her pliable skin.   
  
  
She went rigid at this, the escaped sound of him. He cried into her belly, weeping, howling, lamenting. If he had been a Sophoclean dramatist, perhaps he would have set about tearing out his hair, enjoying the diminutive sting that each strand offered.   
  
  
Why are you crying?.   
  
  
She asked the question with such traceless derision and such childish bluntness that he stopped. He took a deep breath, trying to force his rather obdurate lungs to collapse themselves into a sembelance of order. The contact of her skin against his lips was unpleasantly intimate.   
  
  
He raised himself, on his elbow, ignoring the lack of cushioning beneath them. She was still looking absently at the ceiling, her face of a passive angel. She raised her hand, and with the swift and economic movement of an obessesive soother, wiped the damp off his cheeks with the palms of her cool hands.   
  
  
He inched slowly up her torso, himself a sallow snake. She sat up halfway, glaring at him almost resentfully. He took her hand and kissed it, then dropped it.   
  
  
She reached out, very cautiously, and caressed the collar of his shirt, glancing inquiringly at the buttons. She slipped the pads of her fingers in each button hole, easing each button out with wary arousal.   
  
  
He made no move to help her, he lay rather uselessly in the center of her. She pulled him, collar first, trying to make the situation easier. As she made her ambling way down to the fourth button, he stopped her. Severus knew his limits, and once women undid the fourth button, his body made a concious and primal decision to ignore his mind.   
  
  
I can't let you do this. It's immoral, unconscionable. Remember your sister.   
  
  
He rumbled the last part in a cloudy threat, staying her hand.   
  
  
But what if I want to?.   
  
  
There was the child again, poking its sunny head from around the corners of her face.   
  
  
You don't. I've done things no normal man would even conceive of. I'm tortured, old, practically rheumatic. Leave. Go. Tup with someone your own age, a pretty boy of twenty five. A student. A doctor. A lawyer, a writer, an artist, a Parisian.   
  
  
His mouth was senseleslly spooling off things which he had often heard uttered but had never paid mind to. But he still didn't want her to touch him.   
  
  
I want to see your Mark.   
  
  
She folded her arms across her chest, which was stiffening in the arousal of foreplay and need.   
  
  
He shook his head.   
  
  
I can't even look at it. It's nothing. A scar.   
  
  
The break in his voice beytrayed this, the boulder in his throat was shifting. His face was tightened with his tears, and he found that frowning required considerably more effort.   
  
  
She was lightning quick, deftly pulling his arm up to her, tearing at his sleeve in starved frenzy. He watched helplessly, almost yielding.   
  
  
His whitened and bleached limb lay out in pornographic and starkly naked non-glory. His arm looked preverse, dismembered even. He glanced at it, forgetting it was attached to him, and was repulsed by the vision. The scar was always lighter than his skin, no matter how precariously he avoided the sun.  
  
  
She gagged, eyes registering the nude hideousness of the advesary that she was trying to broach. The skull leered up at her, the carefully branded scar winking in the daylight. The snake was alive, with the beat of his dermis, winding itself sinuously around the eyesockets, tail protruding tellingly from the mouth, a forked tongue.   
  
  
She pulled away from his arm, and ducked away from him, regarding him in loathing and curiosity . He felt shamed, violated, something akin to rape.   
  
  
Didn't I tell you?.   
  
  
The harshness was back in his voice, the rough and snappish edge that haunted his classrooms still was present. She didn't flinch. She was too horrified.   
  
Get away.   
  
  
The brown and wholly repentant pools were looking through him.   
  
You wanted to look at it. You had no right.   
  
  
He was spitting blanks now, his amunition depleted. He was a malignant sore to humanity, both of his kind and muggles, and she was aware of it as well.   
  
  
You should never go trying to discover things to which you have no wish to learn the answer.   
  
  
He was mocking her now, shamefully trying to curse her while her back was turned.   
  
  
You don't think I had a right to learn about my sister?.   
  
  
The calm in her voice was lethal, and her eyes narrowed into slits, her dusky lashes brushing down upon her lower lid before she raised her gaze once more.   
  
  
Not through me.   
  
  
Severus thrust his sleeve down over his arm, feeling the burn and friction of the rough material on his ironically softened skin. The sound was audibly grating on her ears, and she winced.   
  
  
She rose up off the bed, making quite sure that contact of skin was nil. He watched her with an abrasively bored gaze.   
  
  
So you think that your malnourished sense of reality would be able to handle the things your sister most likely endured?.   
  
  
He taunted her again, stretching his gaunt form completely over the matress, his dark clothes spread like an inkstain over the white sheets. Her breathing was labored, and she placed her hands on her hips, finger gripping hard at the bone that emerged from the gap in her pants.   
  
  
Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Why are you so arrogant as to think I can't deal with suffering either?.   
  
  
Her cheek bones were angling her face, cutting horizontal stripes in her youthful flush of rage.   
  
  
Don't quote your bloody book to me. Your god is irrational and thoughtless, as are most things that exist in your primitive and pathetic culture. I know torture, little girl, and whatever you think you may have experienced, I can assure you that it comes not even a modicum close to the things I have been forced to bear.   
  
  
He was spitting now, her ineffective, yet thoroughly rousing preaching drumming through his ears in a persistent and antagonstic battle cry.   
  
  
And making it your pastime swearing allegiance to a man who couldn't even kill a baby, getting your jollies off by raping and killing, that's so much better, Professor? That's the noble work that your time on earth has accounted for?.   
  
  
Her voice lowered, latent animosity wrenching itself free of her. Her fervor was physically palpable now, flinging itself in every direction. Severus was reminded of an angered basilisk, the way her venom was able to penetrate him.   
  
  
He rose, slowly, massively and silently. She sputtered and stopped, a terror pooling in her eyes that give his belly a sick tug of gorged satisfaction.   
  
  
He lowered his hands, dropping it to her waist, pulling her insistently and hastily towards him, her hips so pleasantly malleable between his hands. She shuddered beneath his touch, but there was undeniable hunger in her protesting eyes.   
  
  
And what makes you so immune to promise of power and wealth beyond your torpid, little mind?.   
  
  
He spat each word, the muscles in his throat stringing themselves together in a bitter torque of acid coated utterances. She shook her head, not denying his claim, but trying to slow the force of the words as they collided with her.   
  
  
He reached up his hand, now warmed from prolonged exposure to her skin, and tilted her chin up. She didn't resist, only her eyes which tumbled about like loose hinges.   
  
  
Severus knew that it should have ended, that this sadistic and lengthened torture and dismemberment of her was enough to sate any sadist. His mind was screaming for him to stop, the light battering his eyes. He was growing disgusted with himself, the saliva welling up in his tongue, bile creeping up his throat.   
  
  
He wound his hand around her, tracing his finger around the waistband of her pants. He stopped, feeling the gentle indent of her navel convulse against his touch, her shorter breaths causing her to shudder entirely.   
  
  
A warmth radiated from the area several inches below where he assured himself his hands would never wander to. She shut her eyes again, tears that were stopped up so valiantly overspilling onto her cheeks. She opened her mouth, trying to arrest his perverse and arousing broach of her body, but only croaked a protest.   
  
  
Can't the little minx find the words for what she feels now?.   
  
  
Severus had often found his most deceptive, and sucessful tone of voice was that of being completely indifferent, and utterly bored. He released her, watching her stumble away from him, hands rigidly at her sides, face set in determined dispassion.   
  
  
Do whatever you like to me, you beast, but don't kill me like you did my sister.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Ok, ok, ok. *Puts hands up* Before you all clobber me, let me explain. I know that most will not like this uncovering of the very sadistic, very emotionally damaging Snape. Severus is extremely brutal in this chapter, both to Nadyae and to himself. So, let me go right ahead and tell you what was going through my mind, though I encourage everyone to draw their own inferences. First off, I understand people's uneasiness towards the fact that their ages differ so vastly, that his attraction might be considered lecherous. Well, I was writing it that she grew up too fast, and he still hasn't. Severus had always struck me as someone who was buried in the past, from his grudges to Sirius Black, to his unwilling pact with James Potter. I know that realistically, their relationship would be a bit testy in the eyes of critics, but, what can ya do? This story, as my faithful reviewers understand, is not fluffy. No fluff. Take this as the de-fluffer of every fluffy story. Their love is because they're emotionally unstable, and because he's as damaged as she. As for sex, I find it hard to write, and not so tasteful when it occurs within the first few chapters of the story. Severus never struck me as someone who would immediately go about bed hopping, so, my many apologies for those who were expecting some kind of horizontal action, but, myself rather being a closet sadist, I like to draw things out. *Spoiler* Her last statement is rather shocking, but Severus has to prove his innocence within her sister's death somewhere, right? Many personal and very gratified thanks to: Ami-the-writing-queen, Raven Xavier, Lady Jeanetta and Starlight. Good reviews are the best inspiration ever, and honestly, I would have stopped writing this a long time ago, had I not known people were enjoying it. 


	20. Sang de ma Sang

  
She had punctured something within herself; her stamina suddenly deflated. Her face crumpled, chin moving up and down, frantically swallowing the salty trickle trying to gather in her eyes.   
  
  
I never touched your sister.   
  
  
It was his only defense, his only weapon against the blantantly horrific thing of which she had accused him. And he hadn't, Severus knew, in the abyssmall secrets which he kept so covertly concealed, that he had never harmed her kindred.   
  
  
Nadyae gazed at him soberly, traces of heat and moisture blown away. All that was left was the hardened, rancorous resin of the unfairness of the life that she had been leading.   
  
  
Prove it.   
  
  
She crossed her arms, request mockingly implausible and nakedly simple. She was radiating some other kind of heat, a brand of injustice only a murder can alight.   
  
You know perfectly well I cannot.   
  
  
His voice found its pitch of monotony, the place between the velvet and the blade. His intelligence, scholastic conquests and all the irony in the world could not have helped him. Only his word would save him, and he knew well it was worth nothing to her.   
  
  
You swear it?.  
  
  
Severus had armed himself against more guiltless claims. Her ready acceptance of something that she had no doubt been searching for, was almost blasphemous. It made her cause seem lost.   
  
  
I swear it. On my soul, even, if it's still redeemable.   
  
  
He had tried to inject humor, no matter how black, and found that it only shed extraneous light on the truth.   
  
  
Is there a way to hold you to your word? A bond?.   
  
  
She gripped her shirt, the material pucking around her heart   
  
  
I have no wand, therefore I have no way in which to perform or administer this kind of seal.   
  
  
His reply was blank and concise, and her reaction was impassive. Obviously, she hadn't been considering something with magic.  
  
  
What about blood?.   
  
  
She offered up her wrist, the milky green of her pulse twitching softly in the light. He noted with what naturalistic accuracy all the arteries met, with what godly precision the columns of her tendons conjoined.   
  
  
Severus knew that blood was by far the most volatile of the humors. His own blood was tainted, rotted underneath his skin. The brand which had been used to mark him contained slight, but traceble amount of blackest, most vile and malignant magic.   
  
  
You can't bond with me. Not with this.   
  
  
He tapped his arm, feeling her marbled gaze settle heavily onto his forearm.   
  
  
Then trust isn't an option. Why shouldn't I just leave you out to fend for yourself?.   
  
  
He was trapped against a wall, and she was dangling the strings which kept his whole façade from being toppled. She was tasting power, a thing which she had never considered an option. Severus knew only too well how devastatingly sweet the temptation could be.   
  
  
You would never be able to make a pact in blood with me anyway. My blood would be adverse to yours. You would go into shock and most likely die. Magic can't be solved by pills or needles, especially the Darkness. You meddle in thing's you shouldn't, fair warrior.   
  
  
She looke indifferent, perhaps not understanding, but most likely not caring as to what his blood would do to yours.   
  
  
I don't care. I have to trust you; I can't just take your word.   
  
  
My blood would attack and mingle with yours. You would die in a matter of minutes; it's like a virus, the way it attaches and leeches. Haven't I enough scars already?.   
  
  
He snarled this, feeling a twinge below his left nipple, where he had first been run through with a sword. The ecstatic feeling of glacial metal on overexerted muscle was exquisite.   
  
  
Blood is blood. I need to know the truth, I haven't had a day's rest because I've been trying to find them and kill them. If you stand here and lie to me, I swear I'll kill you.   
  
  
Her chosen words were simple, and her wish was absolute. He had little doubt that she would indeed kill _him, _but to run after Malfoy and Voldemort, that was running headlong off the cliff with the noose still attached.   
  
  
You haven't any idea who you're looking for. The men that you seek are among the earth's most vile creations. Voldemort is unrecognizable as human, and his followers have no souls. You're trying to kill a leader who employs giants, vampires, dragons and the walking dead. It's a losing battle, Nadyae. Please, listen to me.   
  
  
He stepped forward, and she stepped back; a quick, spritely and automatic dance. She looked confused, lost and so childlike, it was like witnessing a metamorphasis.   
  
  
Do this. Please, for me.   
  
  
She was whispering, staring with widened and imploring eyes at her wrists and his hand.   
  
  
Severus took a deep breath, steadying his heart, and slowing the trickle of poison in his heart. He felt his own arm flinch suddenly, an imginary, but poignant knife cutting his own arm cleanly.   
  
  
Get me a blade.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Made the language simpler, and put less metaphors. Blood is an inherent part of magic around the world, but it would make sense that those who have been affected by great evil, that their blood would contain something a shade less human than the rest. Almost like missing a chromosome or something. Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads. Title roughly translates: blood of my blood  



	21. In Darkness, There is Light

  
She disappeared, almost on command, already anticipating his caving in. Her expression remained calm, steady and entirely void of inflections that might have beytrayed her turmoil.   
  
  
  
Severus put his face in his hands, the tip of his nose gently poking through the gaps between his fingers. He applied light, but pointed pressure to his eyes, watching from beneath his lids, the flicker and squirm of brillaint, agitated blood vessels.   
  
  
  
He felt screaming, murderous rage. He felt young, malleable and as though his own destiny was utterly out of his gifted and very precautionary hands.   
  
  
  
She came back, slinking into the room, the only thing that alerted him of her presence was the sound of sharpened metal against soft skin. He looked up, eyes trying to bully her profuse and earnest petition back into the cavern of her head.   
  
  
  
She held a small dagger on the dais of her hand, one palm cupping beneath the other, offering him the ornate and oddly familiar weapon. He took a deep breath, the sound of his angular lips creating a vacum against his teeth.   
  
  
  
Green and silver stared unabashedly up at him, the immaculate face reflecting his own, one smooth place of metal missing from the center. A serpent, carved with such gladly precision, was wound around it, the sexless tail dipping into the metal, scales too miniscule to be probable.   
  
  
His own house.   
  
  
Where such things were banished from him.  
  
  
What is this?.   
  
  
  
He grabbed her, pulling her malaciously towards him, secretly half hoping that the dagger would somehow reverse itself and bury its lovely, untarnished head into the smooth, marbled breast that lay to temptingly close to it. She flinched, her hands enclosing around the thing, the tawny skin so indignantly striking against colourless metal.   
  
  
  
He shook her, trying to force an answer to spill from her half-bitten lips. She was gnawing furiously, delicate skin mercilessly engorged by pearlescent teeth.   
  
  
  
There were drops of scarlet, the thudding sound of heavy, viscuous liquid frantically packing itself within the threads of the fibre. She clutched the dagger, determined to get what she wished, yet not determined to let it go.   
  
  
Where did you get it.   
  
  
His voice had lowered, his question not really a question, but a veiled threat of excommunication.   
  
  
  
It was my sister's. It's just a knife she left to me. She said to use it when I needed to protect myself.   
  
  
Words came over words, hastily tumbling out, overspilling boundaries, omitting the homogenous confession into a fantastically reactive solution.   
  
  
  
Do you always keep such dangerous magical implements scattered about your house?.  
  
  
  
He asked this with cruel indifference, but also with a punctuated air of a scholar to whom everything is already known. He spoke down to her, himself being raised high above on some podium of seniority and stature.   
  
  
Magic? This isn't magic....it's.....it's a knife.   
  
  
  
She faltered, staring at the sanguinous potion coiled about her feet in randomnly radiated spherical drops. The bloodied tip of the knife glinted from beneath the mauve folds of her hands, winking at him in a blatantly mocking way.   
  
  
I would recognise this anywhere.   
  
  
He took her hands, calmly opening them with gentle, but steely force.   
  
  
The markings and pattern of scales upon any serpent are individual, and, with regard to the mother nest, immediately recognisable. Severus felt similarly glancing down at the object, so ridiculously small, but at the same time, was about to wreak immense chaos on both of them.   
  
  
What is it to you? .  
  
  
She asked this not in the manner of some impudent street urchin, or erstwhile vagabond, but a curious and exuberantly bitter woman.   
  
  
Something from my childhood.   
  
  
She was not sated, but momentarily pacified. Severus found his heart beating, almost trying to spirtually escape the confines of his vessel, and go back to the only place that he wanted.   
  
  
Will you still....   
  
  
Her question trailed, not wanting to sound terse, but still pressing.   
  
  
He raised his gaze, too magnetic not to look. Her eyes wavered, glimmering somewhere in boundless nostalgia, and trepidation. He rolled up his own sleeve, spidery fingers coiling themselves about the hem and pulling upwards, a brief flick. A sleight of hand.   
  
  
You understand what would happen if this were to go awry?.   
  
  
She nodded, the most infinite incline of her head. But it was contractual.  
  
  
Against better judgment and the rather loosened reigns of sanity, Severus took the dagger from her, gripping with cautious and damply tenacious hands, the hot metal of the handle.   
  
  
Give me your hand.   
She outstretched her arm, splaying her palm, which was flushed and still slightly crimson from the runoff of her damaged skin.   
  
  
He wrapped his own fingers gently around hers, a small gesture of reassurance. She shirked when he touched her, wincing and trying to shrink back. There was no sound, save for the heavy, and echoing breaths she took.   
  
  
First, he caressed the palm of her hand with the knife, dragging the gleaming metal against yielding material. Without warning, he applied pressure, and was pleased to see that it parted before the knife immdediately, that there was no savage struggling , trying to bind two people with a blunt blade.   
  
  
She stared at her blood in macabre and lewd fascination, the beautiful and velvet color spilling forth from her, emptying out the canals and rivers that ran beneath her skin.   
  
  
Severus made his own incision, quick and precise. His blood was darker, the colour of freshly crushed mulberries. It had been long since he had seen his own, and the sharp, sweet tang of it quickly set off a sucession of memories he had believed were hidden behind mutiply barred rooms.   
  
  
.   
  
  
He said it, panic starting in his voice because once the wounds were sealed, it was nigh impossible to try and re-bond them.   
  
  
Her hand clamped to his, a painful squelching of lubricated droplets.   
  
  
He felt a pulsing in his palm, a very centered heart that conjoined for two seconds, beating in timed and implausible precision that was sealing them. His blood pushed against hers, the smoky corpuscles fighting and battling for oxegyn between their encircled fingers. She felt it too, the way her glassy eyes shifted cautiously from her hand to his face. The colour was slowly draining from her, and the warmth from her fingers was being lost.   
  
  
Severus felt the slow, intoxicating sway of her death overtake him, the way her heart thrashed and thrashed, and the syruppy narcotic of her unconciousness.   
  
  
One heart seperated, flowing freely on its own accord as she collapsed, a tangled, wiry rubble of her limbs. Her eyes flew open as she touched the carpet, the force of the contact ushering the last breath from her by painfully collapsing her lungs.   
  
  
There, in the speckled egg's darkness of her irsises and pupils that lay accusingly affixed onto him, was truth. Somewhere in death, she had found her truth.   
  
  
Severus slumped over himself, feeling drunken, but mutually dead.   
  
  
They lay, head to head, staring into each other. He reached out and casually brushed his fingers over neck, caressing over the soft hairs that sprouted from the base of her scalp.   
  
  
There was nothing.   
  
  
A flatness underneath his fingers.   
  
  
  
She was dead to him, her palm still open, a palette of such deadly vigor still masterfully mixed.   
  
  
Severus closed his eyes, feeling an irrepresible and inappropriate shout of laughter suddenly build up in his diaphragm. He let it out, sounding like a wail of grief and insanity.  
  
  
He laughed, screaming with laughter, rolling over on his side, feeling the dull push of the blade through his clothes. He cast an arm over her, the side of her body still warm.   
  
  
And suddenly, he closed his eyes again, laughter gone. He closed his eyes, welcoming the flickering and ominious shapes behind his lids, bading them to come and take him with them. He closed his eyes, waiting to die.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Oh my gods! They're dead! Or are they?


	22. Gift of the Magi

Author's Warning: Sex in this chapter. Not for those under 17.   
  
Severus was dead. His was the most base, legal definition of death. His heart had stopped beating, his muscles had slackened, the tautness of his fist had loosened, and the warmth of his body was slowly creeping into the carpet.   
  
  
Yet he was not dead.   
  
  
His eyes stirred, the veins within beginning to pulse in a melodiously painful way, thrashing against his lids, forcing them open.   
  
  
He was stiff and cold, the joints in his body feeling alien, and the dull, but unyielding headache was ambling down the distorted pathway of his spinal cord. There was something missing from him, he was quite sure. His body seemed to lack the extra cushioning he had grown used to, and his mind seemed lethargic and slow. The ivory fingertips, stained with various vile substances, had none of the warmth they usually contained.   
  
  
  
He rolled over on his side, knowing that he had, in fact, died, and now was wishing he had stayed that way. It maddened him, this unidentifiable pang of some missing puzzle piece.   
  
  
The girl lay next to him, and Severus almost yelped in shock. Not only was she alive, she was completely radiant. There was an eerie and ethereal glow of well being about her, sparks practically flying from her each time she took a breath. The carpet around her body was shimmering gold, and her skin had returned to a tawny flush.   
  
  
Reflexively, he reached out and touched her. His own body craved the warmth she seemed to be emitting. He raised himself upon his elbow, shoulder edging painfully into the angle of his jaw, and he rolled her towards him.  
  
  
She was directly beneath, curled up almost post-coitally. He lay his head, less gently than he could help, and listened to her heart. Severus frowned; he had been dead for a few minutes, yes, but he was positive his knowledge of anatomy had not escaped him.   
  
  
He could not detect a heartbeat.   
  
  
  
He placed his hands on her stomach, not being able to help the infantile urge to place his head in the dip of her belly and listen to the distant and familiar rumblings of her womb. He lifted the shirt from her, her finely polished hipbones gleaming up at him, the skin supple where they extended.   
  
  
He placed his face there, the small concave muscles a very offertory bowl. Severus, knowing it was preverse and wrong, opened his mouth and tasted her. Beads of prespiration had formed there, a nectar of ambrosial health. He felt disgusted and begrimed, but also felt a primal urge to suckle off some of the life she had suddenly befallen.   
  
  
Severus felt a sudden pain in his groin, a throbbing, pulsing pain. He glanced down, bestially wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. An erection was threatening him; he was already half hard from salivating over the morsel before him.   
  
  
He gave an exasperated, and pained look. The waist of her pants were so low, the cotton of her underthings were temptingly close. He could smell the warm drifts over if he crouched close enough. He convulsed with self disgust. Raping a sleeping woman! Yet such things were not unheard of. The poison of his brain was inky black and spreading to his frontal lobes.   
  
  
He was over her again, her face shining directly up into his. There was such a potent aura about her, it was aching to stare at. He felt like he was defiantly eyeing the sun in full sky.   
  
  
And, with the deepest breath he had ever seen someone take, so deep that the tips of her breasts nearly touched his own chest, she opened her eyes.   
  
  
She looked confused, then pensive. She seemed unoncerned that there was a hungry man leering over her, observing her most innocent gestures with distasteful lust.   
  
  
Her hand crept out of the confines of his body, snaking around his shoulder, coming up slightly around his ear. Severus, always curious, but never appearing to be, cast a scornful glance at her palm. She sucked in a deep breath, eyelashes flattening themselves against the bone of her socket.   
  
  
The lines were sealed, the scar a white zenith.   
  
  
The shape a lightening bolt.   
  
  
Severus looked at his own, a smile, slightly maniac, creeping over his features, illuminating his face in a wicked glow. She ran a finger over his, the almost feverish tip of her hand tracing over his newly aqquired mark with unbearable sensuality.   
  
  
He raised himself more, a parody of two lovers entangled, and glared into her eyes. Her gaze was suddenly smoky and wanton; a need that lingered, something close to his own.   
  
  
She opened her lips to speak, but his mouth had already forced itself onto hers, clamping on with life leeching strength. She didn't protest, only raised herself to meet his raging erection. Severus ground, fingers clenching the carpet around them.   
  
  
Her tongue was a lecherous seeker of his own, prodding his lips gently, until he relented and allowed her to sweep his teeth indifferently. They wrestled, a struggle of dominator and the subdued, but neither won. She was writhing against him, her body's needs quickly overriding her principles.   
  
  
She had torn the shirt from him, and for the first time in nearly twenty years, Severus didn't care about his naked form. His hands had slipped up, fingers slowly massaging the nubile and erect forms of her breasts. She broke the kiss, rolling her head back into the carpet with furious ecstascy. He pulled it roughly over her head, the soft flap of her ear momentarily caught up.   
  
  
Nadyae's warm hands undid his own pants with the ease and precision of someone well practiced. Severus ignored the prominent sentinels that were sirening in his head.   
  
  
He was hard and needy, gasping for release. She wriggled out of her pants, looking, momentarily, like an amorous fish caught outside of its pond. She pulled herself up by him, her arms crossing over his back, peaked breasts moulding with his chest. He grasped her, his nails leaving stubby ridges in their wake.   
  
  
With collective breaths, he entered her. She gasped, first in pleasure, than the sudden pang of discomfort. Her eyes watered with the sting, and he kissed her cheeks, collecting up her salty emotions, and encapsulating them for his own use.  
  
  
She craned her neck upwards, and he kissed her, hard enough to bruise her, his lips and mouth pursing around her non-pulsing vein and suckling. He rested his chin in the hollow of her shoulder, giving vantage of her protruding spine.   
  
  
They were rythmic, and unhurried. It wasn't some sordid rendez-vous with an underage student. And neither was it some sort of unrealised lust. It was simply the basic and all encompassing need of male and female. He hugged her, his large hands roaming up and down her back, kneading the soft skin of her buttocks, and smiling into her collarbones as she groaned in pleasure.   
  
  
Severus could not discern virgins from non-virgins, nor did he care to. But she had felt exquisitely formed around him, the walls of her beating in almost impossible precision with his own. He felt himself approaching the peak, and he removed his head from her shoulder, and reached up to turn her head to his.   
  
  
Look at me.   
  
  
It was panted, and almost shouted, as hers roved towards his own, losing themselves in melancholy unison, flooding with inky memories and present bliss.   
  
  
They both climaxed this way, clutching onto each other, Severus feeling unreasonably consoled and uncomfortably vulnerable. He was also coming to terms with his rather lecherous disregard of the rules.   
  
  
Not only had he performed semi-dark and stupidly dangerous magic on her, it had killed both of them. Which would not explain why, although her heart failed to beat, that she was sitting atop him, coral buds of her breasts blooming into his mouth. He had also just had intercourse with a twenty year old girl who was emotionally unstable, as well as vulnerable. He felt ashamed and disgusted, the retching pains in his stomach begining to creep into his concious.   
  
  
Let me go.   
  
  
He whispered this imploringly, not wanting the feel the arousing heat of her limbs over his own; the damp smell of humans in heat.   
  
  
She shook her head, earthy smell of slightly unwashed hair in his face. He tried to pry her off, gently rearranging her arms so that they did not snake over his neck to tightly.   
  
  
Don't. Just hold me, just for a bit.   
  
  
Her hot breath in his neck, stirring the muscles that were dormant. He felt the warm shape of her mouth on him, the soft, chaste kisses of a doting mother. He relented and enfolded her once more, rocking her back and forth, at ease with his nudity.   
  
  
In Severus' past, his lovers were quick and hurried sucessions, grunting, groaning, sweating. All things unpleasantly human as they writhed and shrieked beneath him, pelting him with obscenities, battering his limbs with their teeth and hands. Sex was not really a pleasure for Severus; it was a build up of pain and torment, released in a few, quick thrusts.  
  
  
He had spiraled into a perversive and subversive habit of checking for ill-will after his conquests were asleep: poisons, deadly sleeping draughts, weapons. He had always insisted upon positioning himself, so that his back was never facing a door. Long and furtive years of working as a sharpened double edged sword had taken its toll; he had become reclusive and paranoid, women avoided him. Not that he minded, he preferred his solitary company.   
  
  
Until now.   
  
  
Severus couldn't explain this sudden sexual and untimely hormonal drive that left him sapped of energy, yet panting for more. He could never recall ever having been so attracted to one of his students (save for the stolen kiss from Granger) that it made him hard within seconds of thinking upon it.   
  
  
The girl was beginning to shift, the dampness of her groin growing warm against his own. He could feel himself tighten for her, and wordlessly, they began again.   
  
  
It was over much more quickly this time, and she didn't seem to mind. She closed her eyes, sleepy and pleasured. He kissed her neck again, using the blunt and uneven edges of his teeth to create a gently painful friction.  
  
  
Is there something wrong with me?.   
  
  
The suddeness of her question surprised him, he stopped mid-nip. He raised his head, looking into her very grave eyes. There was deep seated panic there.   
  
  
No. Why? You seem perfectly alive to me.   
  
  
He was too exhausted to try and banter.   
  
  
Fine. Then if I ask, will you promise not to go and make fun of me?.   
  
  
He nodded. She looked perplexed as she took his hand, and guided it towards her breast. She placed his cool palm upon her ignited skin. He felt nothing, the same emptiness he had felt before.   
  
  
Why isn't there a heartbeat?.   
  
  
The crack in her voice alerted him that she was aware that she was somehow an awoken corpse. That she was flourishing in life after death. He sighed, and slowly slid from beneath her, extending his legs so that she tumbled gently from him.   
  
  
She sat, knees in front of her, large and luminous eyes appearing from the rugged peaks of her legs. They accusingly followed his every move; it made him nervous to be observed like this, starkly stripped of outer protection.   
  
  
He observed her again, this specimen of newly aqquired resilience that was placed before him. Her skin was flushed, blood that should have been stoppered up in her veins, deprived of any nourishing oxegyn, was evidently still flowing. He frowned, hating to not know the end-all of things.   
  
  
Vampirism, though Severus knew it was highly improbable, was one likely explanation. Though it couldn't quite tell the astute Professor why she was so radiantly alive.   
  
  
He took an arm, and with a very quick, downward tear, making a small incision. She gave him a partially disgusted, partially fascinated look.   
  
  
Are you hungry?.   
  
  
The question was casual, sounding as though Severus just happened to stumble upon people who thirsted after blood everyday. She shook her head, watching intently the small beads of blood that formed upon the seams of his cut.   
  
  
He knelt down, placing his arm towards her face, the blood directly beneath her nose. She flinched, pushing him away, taking care not to touch his wound.   
  
  
You feel nothing? Not some urge to feed?.   
  
  
She shook her head, colour fading. He nodded, and wiped his arm. He expected the cut to heal, seal itself beneath his hands. If one was born with magic, it lived in their bodies, harvesting itself in their fingertips, their brains. Their skin. Their blood. Magic existed in rythym with the heart, flushing itself through the body, renewing itself when needed.   
  
  
The cut remained gaping, pink flap of skin beginning to turn rust coloured with oxegyn.   
  
  
He smoothed his hand over his skin again, knowing inherently it wouldn't work the second time, either. A feeling of despair, dread and lifelessness was beginning to choke him.   
  
  
She had crept over, drawn to his sudden need, and smoothed her fingertip over the cut, just as she had seen him do it. It immediately puckered beneath her touch, the skin re-fastening.   
  
  
The girl was staring at her hands in wonder, stupified by what she had done. Severus looked at her, black eyes narrowing in furor, his body tensing with his rage.   
  
  
I don't understand. It's never happened before.....what does it mean?.   
  
  
She was gasping, struggling to give voice to her newfound emotions and complex gift.   
  
  
If I am correct, and woe betide you if I am, in my unwitting and stupid error, I believe my own magic was transferred to you.   
  
  
Severus himself was finding it difficult to speak, throat thickened by tears and sudden weight of loss. His magic was robbed of him, the thing that made him _different_. It was gone now, pulsing happily in the body of another, cycling around in a girl who couldn't even comprehend what she had befallen.   
  
  
I'm sorry......I didn't know.   
  
  
She reached out, trying to placate him, golden dusted arms outstretching like some drugged deity, some glorious Ganesh whose blue hued limbs lured the hapless many. She was on her knees now, tears pouring forth unabashedly, trying to win back the man she had unknowingly burnt. He felt suffocated, placed upon a pile of wood, waiting to be crucified.   
  
  
He ran past her, shoving her naked form out of his way, bruising her delicate skin. He thundered into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, hearing the crunch of the plaster on the metal lock. Severus flipped open the porcelain lid, and glanced at his weary face in the creamy white of the bowl, before depositing what felt like everything he had ever eaten.   
  
  
His stomach coiled in upon itself, snaking its way in his body, up his throat, causing his eyes to tear, and the repulsive growls that were emitted to become louder. He was screaming in pain, the sudden numbness that he had become so used to was wrenched away, a missing limb that he was never quite aware of. He clapsed onto the sides, admiring the cool basin before it was heated beneath his feverish body.   
  
  
Gods...gods....help me......Albus............gods save me....please.....Jove....Hectate........Mab....   
  
  
He was hoarse, intermingling deities and oaths. His legs and back quivered in his exertion, sweat beading upon his brow, and tumbling into the water.   
  
  
He closed his eyes, willing the hot blackness to force his head beneath the angry and interrupted sea.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Sad and depressing. But there was some sex, even though it wasn't pretty,or that descriptive. See, I haven't many personal reserves to draw from, and the fics I do read make having sex with Snape sound fun and romantic. But, come one! He's tortured, possesive, sadistic. It's not going to all be scented candles and massage oils. I think that his despair was finally culminated in the fact that he lost his magic. I doubt that if he had been more hopeful that he could return to Hogwarts, that he would have been so easily bereft. Anyway, hope you liked that rather dismal one. Please keep reviewing! It's loads of help, and just all around wonderful to know that you're making peoples days (or in case of Ami-the-writing-queen, delaying their nail growth). Much love to anyone and everyone who reads.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	23. Edible Woman

A/N: I'm so sorry for not updating for ages. I've been on a holiday so I haven't been within reach of a computer. I've just figured out the ending and important plot points of this story, so I promise good writing ahead. My profoundest apologies! Notice anything different about this chapter? ^_^  
  
  
She had stolen up behind him, wrapped in bedsheets, terrified by the sight of the proud and stern man, reduced to the quivering, sweating and vomiting mass that lay on the floor. His skin was the pallor of the tiles, and his eyes were wandering, liquid in their hold. She waved her hand over his face, trying to heal whatever damage had been done, but it hadn't worked. He lay still, so quietly, deathly still.   
  
  
  
She began to quake herself, a mere child in these things. Whatever had been given to her, it was capricious in its timing. When she had needed it most, it wasn't there. She had gained nothing from the thing which he had so greviously parted with.   
  
  
  
She stooped down, running her hand gently over his chest. His heart was beatnig, faintly, but still there. A mad twinge of jealousy encased her, as she thought that he was fortunate to even contain one. Her own lay useless in her chest, something that signalled her life was unnatural, her recreation something very Frankenstein-ish.   
  
  
His mouth was open slightly, lips parted to reveal darkened teeth. A pearly string of saliva gathered at the cracked corners of her lips, and she swabbed his head. Nadyae had no idea if he was going to live or die, not that it would matter, considering both of them had died once already, and from the numerous scars and mars upon his body, at least twice for him.   
  
  
There was a life force within her, after she had awoken, that had refused to be diminished. It had felt that her mind and heart had refused to live, yet some external push on her body had roused her once again. The world was bathed in a new, more three dimensional way. Her senses felt awakened, and she felt drunk on colour, sensation and taste. The dampness and throbbing between her thighs, and the marks on her neck and breasts made by him, were humming in delightful afterglow.   
  
  
She lifted his arm, tugging him towards the shower. For a mean so precipitously thin, he was heavy. She grunted slightly, trying to slide his bleached form over the tiles. His skin squeaked in un-lubricated protest, and she ignored the painful thudding of his head. Her medical knowledge was limited, and she knew nothing of healing. For her, the extent of being a good nurse meant a box of bandaids and the occasioanl sleeping pill.   
  
  
But with death so imminent before her, she knew that water would become something that would either save or kill him. She didn't have much time or choice, so she decided to take a risk.   
  
  
Nadyae left his body at the foot of the shower, his head resting on the step. She turned on the cold water, stepping out of the way as the cutting droplets slashed horizontally at the rectangular coffin. She backed in, igoring the freezing tide, and she sat directly beneath the outpour, his head nestled in her lap. He looked pained as he slept, eyelids sometimes wandering. The heat which he seemed to so painfully exude before was gradually lowering, and his the tense of his muscles became more lax. She rested her lips on his forehead, his nose nuzzling the hollow of her chest.   
  
  
Wake up, Severus. Wake for me.   



	24. Styx

  
It had occured to Severus, somewhere in the dreamy womb of unconciousness, that pain is among the first recognitions of life. An infant feels it as it's ripped untimely from its mothers stomach, similarly, a mother feels it as she gives birth to life. And now he himself felt it, acidic drops serrating his flesh, hurtling upon each pore with malacious accuracy.   
  
  
He was sitting, oddly crunched, his chin burrowing into the hollow of his throat, his long legs somehow avoiding the hypothermic downpour, and his mouth gaping and recieving unwanted tokens of freezing rain.   
  
  
He could clearly discern there was something cushioning him, something spritely and alive, a warm and forbidden scent tendriling out, avoiding the deadly drops, and making its cautious way towards his nose. There were hands beneath his ears, thumbs massaging the sensitive spot where the orifice of his ear began to close.   
  
  
There was another sting on his face; a hot mingle of the two temperatures trying to conquer each other. The warm liquid slid down his face, and from the convulsions of whomever was cradling him, Severus believed it to be tear drops.   
  
  
His eyes were too swollen to open, and his stomach felt dense and empty. He wanted to simply die beneath the cold stream, the numbing frostiness of whatever was drowning him.   
  
  
He lay still, letting hisc muscles uncoil themselves, letting his body distend. He was aware of a growing void within him, an emptiness that would suddenly strike him, punctuated as a curled fist, up his ribs, straight into his heart.   
  
  
Severus' eyes opened slowly, unfocused, the world a milky, colloidal blaze. He let his head roll, the lines of the tile pressing insistently on his face. The girl was shivering, and probably blue underneath him, the taut slab of her belly convulsing regularly with contained shiver.   
  
  
Her eyes were above his own, hazy brown particles of concern. Her lips were moving, but Severus simply lacked the energy to hear her. He wanted to stare in wan perfection of her tiny, rosebud mouth, shaping some distant, and mystic language he had all but forgotten.   
  
  
Wake up. Please, please, please. Severus Snape, wake up. Oh, Christ, don't die. Please don't be dead.   
  
  
Her fingertips sought his chest, where her hand flattened out and became a mauve spider above his ashen chest. He felt like he was dead, hovering between the very precarcious line of complete coma and sudden awakening. This time, despite how many imminent times he would come to spite himself for this decision, he chose to rise.   
  
  
His conciousness revealed itself by him suddenly jolting up and taking deep, ragged breaths. His lungs sounded terrible, the delicate and membraenous tissues blocked by sickness. She did a half leap, as best she could, for the shower could barely contain half of him. He was on his belly again, navel brushing over rusty gates of drain, feeling each preforation as if he had imbibed _sensii insanmnia _potion. He groaned, glossy baritone overspilled by unflattering sputters.   
  
  
The girl had already turned off the water, and was dragging him out, her breasts once again pressed to him, her mouth simply seeking any part of his face, laying grateful and devotional kisses upon each centimeter of skin.   
Oh god, oh god, oh god.   
  
  
She couldn't stop repeating herself, sounding hysterically orgasmic. He nodded,his head almost cracking against the floor once again. He draped an arm over her, and tried to raise himself, but found his legs simply lacked the stamina. His body had undergone innumerable batterings, but none quite so shocking as this. She was weeping into his hair, inhaling the fumes of his much-disputed raven mane.   
  
  
You're alive. You're alive. You're alive.   
  
  
Seveurs noted dryly that when women of any assortment were elated or ecstatic, their verbal function seemed to serve no purpose.   
  
  
.   
  
  
He whispered this to hear, coaxing her by gently putting a hand on her hip. He closed his eyes, and the endless trip he had envisioned was over in a matter of a few half-awake seconds.   
  
  
She laid him down gently, crawling atop him and pullling the covers over both of them. His body lacked strength to warm even his own pitiful self up.   
  
  
Severus discovered that they were in the same devastatingly intimate positioned that had propelled him to such desperate measured a mere day ago.   
  
  
Can you speak?.   
  
  
She whispered this into his ear, his neck immediately prickling at the warmth of her breath. He nodded.   
  
  
Barely. I feel as if I've vomited up the entire solar system.   
  
  
His stomach heaved weakly, mocking mirth. She laughed, but there was a guilty tinge of fear to her voice.   
  
  
Were you dead?.   
  
  
She asked this wonderously, as if she had not just come through the same and equally terrifying ordeal. He would have rolled his eyes, had it not pained him so.   
  
  
No. Unconcious. Revived in large part to your rather jolting medical skills.   
  
  
Severus Snape was born with a dollop of sarcasm ingrained so deeply within him, it was inextractable, even when facing death.   
  
  
What happens now?.   
  
  
She had uttered the dreaded question that he had no idea how to answer. What did happen next? What could she do with a magic that was coupled with a blackness that had overpowered her blood? That had robbed her of a heart, and a sister?   
  
  
I suppose we just sleep it off.   
  
  
He had said this in jest, but was aware of a fast approaching fatigue that was threatening the dim horizons of his eyes. He relaxed, finally feeling her warmth.   
  
  
Do you want me to stay?.   
  
  
He was proud, but not foolish.   
  
  
He tucked an arm around her waist, and she snuggled into him, ignoring the eerie similarity of the temperature of his skin, to that of a corpse.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Sorry for delays. School started up again and I'm a bit overwhelmed. Anyways, I apologise so much because I've been an arse about updating and whatnot. I just hope people will return to the story.   
  
  
  
  
  
  



	25. River of Sight

  
  
She had already risen, when his body had lurched itself into arousal. His fingers crept over to the crevice made by her body beside him, and his features tugged themselves into an disappointed frown. She was always disappearing on him, fleeing from the very crucial moments when he needed her most.   
  
  
Severus stopped himself.   
  
  
When he required her assistance.   
  
  
Need was an often misused word, too strong for its own good. He had never known the need of anyone, nor had anyone known the need of him. In all his gloriously tormented years, he had learn to wean himself off of depending upon other people. Human beings were too capricious, too whimsical; it was better to simply rely on one's self, where the outcome of thoughts and actions would always be premeditated.   
  
  
He chuckled to himself, the dryness of his throat causing his vocal chords to touch upon each other in sandpapery melody. He coughed, and sat up, sore muscles and aching belly all part of the large mosaic of unhapiness where he dwelled.   
  
  
His eyes were bleary, and the fine, wispy stubble on his chin was beginning to sprout. Severus thought that he must have looked a sight when she had pulled him out of the shower, his limpid form the pallor of a drowned fish.   
  
  
And, with a last and desperate strangled laugh, he knew that he could not hide from truth forever.   
  
  
His magic was gone, wand probably broken, Albus severed from him, even his robes were bereft. Severus, first time that his fortuitious self reliance had crinkled, found that a drink would have been a lovely antecdote. He cracked his knuckles, the usually cheerful pops never failing to alleviate some stress, were wan in his ears.   
  
  
He had been arrogant enough to consider that his magic was something that could never leave his body, something that lived in his skin, and was therefore inexorable from his own self. He stared ruefully at his palm, papyrus thin scar tinged with grey. Potter's scar had been the same, snaking its way ostentatiously down the center of his head, but his own was more sinister looking. Where Potter's had been blunt and rather crude, his own was etched, whittled with a fine and sharpened blade.  
  
  
His own house had won him this; this last and most humiliating of betrayals. His own house had left him castrated.   
  
  
And the girl. What of her? What stupid and unusual twist of fate had left her with this? His burdens were not hers to bear, yet they were suddenly glimmering in the cells and pores of her skin. Severus' heart grew sore with an unfamiliar emotion, and his mind was clouded with a large dosage of commiseration.   
  
  
His blackened eyes narrowed, lean frame tense.   
  
  
The unfairness of life was no stranger to him; in fact, he had rather learned to swallow a significant portion of his pride, and allow himself to be carried along turbulent, frequently upset rivers of other people's intentions.   
  
  
She was far more vulnerable than he had ever foreseen, and this threw a particularly difficult obstacle to him. Sudden flare-ups of old magic did not just simply appear; it was a struggle for the Ministry to keep the Deatheaters from merely swarming at the door everytime a magical phenomena occured. He shivered; he could not help but dwell upon the things they could do to her, the horrors that he would have once so willingly performed.   
  
  
Decidedly the worst part now was that he was firmly rooted here, his chivalrous and underused side of his nature knowing intuitively that he could never leave her alone. And, even under the threat of Crucio would he never have admitted this: he didn't want to leave her.   
  
  
He shied from love, wilting in its sometimes oppresive sun, as others can seek renewal. Love was something he had been abused with, rather than nurtured.   
  
  
And now that he had gone and fucked her as well, depriving her of a heart, he could hardly think that she deserved to be abondoned.   
  
His present shame had come back to haunt him, accompanying his reminsince of these maudlin muggle plays.  
  
  
He would never leave her.   
  
  
Ever.   



End file.
